


The Way We Were

by Deejaymil



Series: The Always Continuing Adventures of Blackbird and Fiver [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Best Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Coming of Age, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up Together, If this slow burn was any slower we'd be ageing with the characters, More like Gradual Oxidisation, There's a lot of hares in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-03-29 12:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 70,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13927398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil
Summary: There was a boy in Emily's garden: a skinny, messy boy with sticky-up hair and a nose as twitchy as the rabbit he was holding. Emily wasn't sure what to make of him, or why she should care about the difference between rabbits and hares.The boy, Spencer Reid, thought that it was very important that people cared about things like whether a rabbit was a rabbit or actually a hare. It wasn’t very kind, he’d found, to be called one thing when you were another, and he didn’t like that this bossy girl in her torn stockings and dirty dress was trying to tell him otherwise.And they never expected that they'd be the best of friends.





	1. Rabbit or Hare?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blythechild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/gifts).



> Spence is aged up to be the same age as Emily here, just for simplicity's sake.
> 
> This fic is a gift to the ever-wonderful Blythechild, because she loves lonely souls finding each other and she loves Em/Spence, and that guarantees she's going to like at least two aspects of this story ;)

There was a boy in her garden, a skinny, messy boy with sticky-up hair and a nose as twitchy as the rabbit he was holding. Emily Prentiss stopped under the shade of her favourite oak tree and examined this skinny, messy boy with his sticky-up hair and twitchy nose, wondering who he was and how he’d come to be here. A fanciful part of her mind thought he might be a faerie of some kind—he sure dressed like the faeries in her picture books, with his shirt buttoned up neat right to his thin neck and his pants made of forest-brown corduroy. He even wore a tie, which she was sure faeries didn’t wear but knew little boys didn’t wear either.

He was a puzzle. Emily didn’t like puzzles. She liked answers that behaved, not ones that she had to chase around and around in order to get straight. And, thus, she decided that she did _not_ like this boy.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my garden?” she demanded. That was a way to get a straight answer—demand it! The boy just looked a little puzzled. The rabbit in his hands just looked sleepy and limp. “And why do you have a rabbit?”

“It’s a hare, actually,” said the boy. “It’s too young and precocial to be a rabbit, they’re born… you don’t actually care, do you?”

Emily didn’t. “No,” she said, because she was many things but rarely a liar. “Why would I care about a rabbit?”

 

That was a very interesting thing that she’d just said. It aroused several questions in the boy’s mind, which wasn’t wholly unusual—many things raised a question in his mind, most things raised two or three in tandem.

The boy, Spencer Reid, thought that it was very important that people cared about things like whether a rabbit was a rabbit or actually a hare. It wasn’t very kind, he’d found, to be called one thing when you were another, and he didn’t like that this bossy girl in her torn stockings and dirty dress was trying to tell him otherwise.

The questions he thought of were these, in no particular order of importance:

What worth was a rabbit in the grand scheme of things, especially to a girl like this, who held inherent worth purely because she was alive and a human and dressed in clothes that were expensive, if a bit ruffled?

Who was to say that the girl was worth more than the rabbit?

Following that train of thought, who was to say that _he_ was worth more or less than either the rabbit or the girl, seeing as he stood here in clothes that were not as expensive as the girl’s but far more expensive than the rabbit’s?

And the final question was: was it worth getting kicked in order to voice any of these questions, having been kicked many times before for much the same reason?

He decided it wasn’t and instead:

“It’s not nice to ignore what something is in favour of what you’d rather it be,” he told her firmly. Being firm was new to him and he didn’t quite feel comfortable with it, especially not as she scowled and something in his belly told him that he should probably run away. This kind of girl, all pointy and cross from her straight dark hair to her wide dark eyes, was the kind of girl that kicked first, asked later, and he’d had enough of being kicked in his life. “The kind of person who does that is the kind of person who _ignores_ things they don’t think are important… even if they are.”

And he swallowed, because Spencer Reid didn’t like being ignored, but he’d found it happening to him increasingly often lately.

He didn’t really like her for reminding him of that.

 

Emily just stared.

“You’re weird,” she announced. “You still haven’t told me who you are, or why you’re here, or what’s with the _rabbit_.” She chose her words very carefully there, as she often did, because the best way she’d found to test if a person was real or fake was to see if she could make them mad. No one could be mad and fake; no one except her mother. If he actually cared about the difference between rabbits and hares, he’d get mad and she’d know what kind of boy he was.

If a small part of her, even smaller than the part that didn’t like this boy, hoped that he passed this test, she ignored it. She was good at ignoring things, like homework or tutors or her parents scolding her for making a mess, or how lonely it could be being an only child in a house too big for a family of three.

“I’m Spencer,” said the boy finally. “Spencer Reid. I live here. And so does he.” He lifted the hare, which didn’t look very well. “Or, at least, I guess he does. He was eating those plants before he got sick.”

Emily stared some more. Most of what this ‘Spencer’ had just said didn’t make sense. Well, some of it did—she doubted he was lying about his name and supposed it wasn’t so unlikely that a hare had come to live here too.

But a boy? Here?

“You don’t live here, this is my house. _I_ live here.” That made sense to her. There’d never been a boy at this house before, why would one have come here now?

But Spencer didn’t seem to see the logic in that, just shifting the hare around in his hands and looking down at it with his sunburned nose scrunching a little. “And now I live here too,” he replied. “I think your mom was going to tell you tonight—we weren’t supposed to get here for two days, but my mom—”

Emily cut him off: “Right,” she said, thumping her foot once for good riddance and storming off. “We’ll see about this!” See if _she_ was sharing her house with any stupid _boy_ and his equally stupid rabbit! If he was a faerie, he was definitely the worst kind—the kind that only brought bad luck.

And she was sure that she’d never ever like him.


	2. The Sometimes Homes

Elizabeth Prentiss ensured that her daughter would immensely dislike the strange boy in their garden, and she did it by turning on its head one of the few things that Emily had always been sure of up until this point. This house, perched on the side of Lake Washington, was only a sometimes house. One of Emily’s favourite sometimes houses, for multitudes of reasons, but a sometimes house nevertheless. And, when Elizabeth left this sometimes house for somewhere new and exciting, Emily would go with her. That was how it worked. That was how it had always worked, even before The Thing had happened that had brought them back here to this sometimes house for a bit longer than usual. And, sure, Emily loved this garden the best of all gardens and she really loved the lake that washed against the back of their yard, and she especially loved the guest house that she could pretend to be A Lady in with no one there to judge her, but she could only love a thing for so long before it got _boring_.

“I was going to tell you over dinner, but they arrived early,” Elizabeth said to her stormy-faced daughter. “Diana Reid is an old friend of mine, from college. We were very close, once upon a time, but we grew apart. However, she needs help and, as it turns out, so do I.”

“So let _her_ live here,” Emily said. “Send the boy away! I don’t like him. He’s strange.”

“Don’t be crass. Spencer is Diana’s son, and they’ll _both_ be living here for the foreseeable future, and you are going to make them feel welcome, do you understand me?”

Emily scowled.

“I asked you a question, Emily Elizabeth, and I expect to be answered. Do you understand me?”

“I _understand_ ,” said Emily carefully, who knew that understanding was absolutely not the same as obeying. “But we’re leaving soon, right? So it’s just going to be him here, touching all my stuff without me to stop him. What if he’s a thief? What if he’s…” She paused for effect, pressing her hand to her mouth in a mimicry of the way she’d seen Ally do when she was gossiping. “What if he’s a _pervert?”_

Elizabeth paused over her paperwork. “You don’t even know what that is.”

“Yes, I do.” Emily did and, besides, even if she didn’t, she knew it was something rotten.

But her mother just sighed, with the distinct thought that she should really be speaking to the help about them gossiping around her daughter. Or, restricting Emily’s access to the kitchen. But, before that, there was an unpleasant conversation to be had, the one that would ensure that Emily and Spencer’s introduction to each other would be fraught with dislike on both sides.

Elizabeth asked her daughter to sit down.

 

In the guest house, there was a similar—but slightly less ferocious—conversation occurring. Unlike the one within the main, this one was taking place, not over a desk piled with paperwork and maps, but over a box with a baby hare, a leveret, laying within.

“Is the hare going to die?” Spencer asked, propping his book of ‘Leporids of the World’ on his knees and looking over his glasses at his mom. “If it is, I should probably be reading up on funeral services for it. Do you think he has a preference?”

“Beneath a walnut-shade, I should think,” said Diana, adding another blanket to the box for the shivering hare. “But if he lives, oh what a life, Spencer. ‘Eight years and five round rolling moons, dozing out all his idle noons, and every night at play.’ That’s the epitaph of a hare, remarkable.”

“Um.” Spencer paused, his brain stuck between the book on his knees and the girl in the garden and the hare in the box, but finding the answer it sought nonetheless. “Yeats. You’ve read me that.”

Diana shook the syringe she’d been using to water the dazed hare at him. “Incorrect. Yeats wrote ‘The Death of the Hare’. Ahh, wilderness lost. No, honey, that was Cowper, William Cowper. I have a book of his work somewhere, you must read it when our belongings arrive. Or I’ll read it to you.”

“Please.” Spencer leaned closer, shuffling to peer in at that hare. Around them, the house was strange. Strangers’ furniture and empty shelves and echoing rooms, with not enough people inside to fill it all up. “Will it die?”

“I don’t know. No one does. Really, it’s up to the hare, and you know that. You knew it when you picked him up. What’s really bothering you?”

The answer to that question was complex but finite, and Spencer suspected that it would begin and end with the bossy girl in the garden. “Do we have to stay here?” he asked finally. His mom was the smartest person in the world, but he doubted even her ability to guide him on the whims of bossy girls. “When will Dad come home?”

And Diana was quiet, because that was a tough question full of thorns and knots and bits that would hurt them to touch at. Instead of answering, she asked, “Don’t you like it here? With the forests and the lake, and Elizabeth has a little girl, just your age. Now, I’m suspicious of the belief that all children of the same age will immediately become friends, but I’m sure you can agree that there’s the possibility of friendship between you both.”

“I met her. I don’t think so…” It wasn’t just her bossiness or the way Spencer thought she might be the kind of person who liked kicking people smaller than her—it was this _house_. Not the guest house, which was about the size of their home back in Vegas, but the fact that the guest house was a guest house at all—simply an attachment to a larger home, unused except for occasionally. A sometimes home for people with too much money for a guest bedroom. And there was the girl herself, in her fancy, pretty clothes—what would she think of a boy like him?

Spencer had never been ashamed of his belongings before, but now he looked at his clothes and the only bag of his belongings that wasn’t in transit from Vegas—a battered shoulder tote made of leather and broken clasps—and thought that he might be ashamed of them now.

“Spencer, come here.” Diana motioned him closer, taking the book from him and opening to a page showing a map of the world with minute pictures of hares and rabbits scattered across it. “I’m going to tell you a story. Sit down.”

 

And both mothers, entirely without knowledge of the other, told their children very different variations of much the same thing. Elizabeth had a job, a very important one. She was a diplomat—here, Elizabeth didn’t explain further because Emily knew this bit, and Diana segued to explain the origins of the term—which meant essentially that her job was to use her words in order to further their country’s interests abroad. It meant that Elizabeth travelled to many places, and not all of them were safe. Some of them, like the capital of Italy— “Rome,” Spencer said, earning a smile—were just downright dangerous in 1978.

As Diana told Spencer, there wasn’t a mother alive who would happily take their child into danger.

As Elizabeth told Emily, “You’ll be staying here, and I won’t hear complaining or that you’ve made this hard for Diana. It’s a three-month posting, and it’s summer. I’ll be back before you return to school. No, don’t frown like that—if I see one tear, you’ll be sent away. Boarding school instead.”

“But why?” both children asked.

Because, they were told, that’s just the way life is sometimes, and you have to make the most of it.


	3. A Battle of Pea Armies

Making the most of it began like this:

Imagine a very large table, of the kind found in very nice houses. This was the table that Emily and Spencer and their respective mothers were sitting at the night that the Reids came to live with the Prentisses. The table was made of beautifully carved oak, designed to seat twelve. Four sat here at this moment: two together at the head talking quite happily to each other over a shared bottle of wine, and two sitting as far apart as they could possibly be down the other end. On one side sat Emily, who resented the clean dress she’d been pressed to wear and the bow that matched it in her hair and the fact they’d been served duck, which she hated, just to impress this _boy_ in her home. On the other, sat Spencer, who was more concerned with which fork he was supposed to use and trying not to bump his elbows on the too-tall table, all the while ignoring the series of focused glares Emily was shooting his way. It seemed unfathomable to him, just what exactly her problem with him was, therefore there was no point worrying about it. Instead, he focused on more realistic mysteries to solve, like the aforementioned fork problem—just why were there _three_ different kinds? —and also what exactly was on his plate right now.

“Hey,” hissed Emily when she figured the mothers weren’t paying attention. “Hey, you.”

She followed this hiss with a pea, shot with dangerous accuracy from her fork and into Spencer’s glass.

“Did you just flick a pea into my drink?” asked Spencer, abandoning the three-fork-conundrum and lifting up his glass. In the rich red liquid inside, the pea bobbed. “Why?”

“I didn’t,” lied Emily with a smile, lining up another pea. “Mom says you _are_ staying here. Why?”

“I don’t know.” Spencer picked up the most likely of the forks and fished out the pea, glancing up to make sure he wasn’t being watched before placing it gently on a small plate that also had some kind of unknown function to him. “Please don’t shoot—”

This pea, with unerring accuracy, hit his glasses. He scowled.

Emily smiled.

“My name is _Spencer,_ not _you_ , and you’re wasting food,” he told her in a stern whisper, aware that this was Their business and not their mothers’. “Why are you angry at me? It’s not my fault you can’t go to Rome.”

The scowl that Emily was wearing deepened, at odds with the satin rose-patterned bow in her hair, and Spencer shrunk back into his chair, clutching his damp fork for dear life. On the table in front of him, the strange white meat sat with a too-rich gravy congealing around it, his stomach too tight and worried to tolerate the new food while also fighting off a pea-catastrophe from the opposing side of this oaken battlefield.

“It’s _entirely_ your fault I can’t go to Rome,” she hissed. Elizabeth, at the head of the table and alerted by a strange hissing sound, glanced first at her daughter and then at the door leading to the kitchens, wondering if someone had left a kettle boiling. Innocently, both Spencer and Emily met her eyes before continuing their feud as she looked away. “If you didn’t exist, I’d be going!”

“That seems illogical,” Spencer replied, since he was certain that his existence had nothing to do with the tumultuous state of Italian politics. “If I didn’t exist, my mother would still exist. Ergo, she’d still be here—since her friendship with your mother occurred far before I had any say in it—and you’d be staying anyway, just without me here.”

“What?” Emily said, who was sure he’d made up at least one word in that rambled sentence. “Why do you talk like a teacher? What’s ‘ergo’?”

Spencer opened his mouth, then thought better of answering that as he noticed yet another pea—this time with gravy—being lined up. Shrinking down a little to protect his nicest shirt, he said, “The hare is still alive.”

The pea paused. Emily tilted her head to study him, nibbling at her lip as she wondered whether it was worth not hitting him with this pea to ask more.

“Is it going to _stay_ alive?” she asked.

“Maybe. Maybe not. It’s up to the hare.” To Spencer, this was a perfectly adequate answer.

Apparently, judging by the pea that hit him ten seconds later, Emily did not agree. Unfortunately, he’d been just about to pick up his drink as the carefully aimed projectile landed with startling force in his mouth.

He coughed, the drink went flying, and there was a responding, “Emily!” from both the watching help and Elizabeth.

Oops, thought Emily. Busted.

Oops, thought Spencer, looking down at his Hibiscus-infused-lemonade-y lap. Bother.

And thus, their introduction to each other was complete.

 

Elizabeth, who by now was very used to her daughter, knew better than to simply send Emily to her room for her misbehaviour, guessing quite correctly that that was the intended outcome of the pea-volley. Instead, she did the absolute worst thing she could possibly do to Emily, and she did it with a smile.

“Take Spencer to the bathroom and help him clean up,” she commanded. “And do so _kindly.”_

Spencer, looking at the expression on Emily’s face, wasn’t entirely sure that that last request was likely to be followed.

It wasn’t.

 

“That’s very cold water,” Spencer said warily, watching Emily soak a towel that probably wasn’t supposed to be used on red lemonade with water that she was wincing to touch. “Um, maybe you should, or I could, put some warm—ah!”

It was, in fact, _very_ cold water.

“Stop squirming, I’m helping,” Emily told him firmly, pressing hard on his face and rubbing the towel vigorously around.

“The lemonade is on my shirt,” came the muffled voice from the towel.

“It _splashed_ ,” was the retort.

Spencer doubted that greatly, but permitted her to continue scrubbing his face until she appeared to have vented most of her ire onto it, lowering the towel and jabbing fiercely at his, probably ruined, shirt.

“Feeling better?” he asked her.

“No.”

They looked at each other, Spencer’s glasses crooked from the towel and Emily’s bow starting to slip sideways from her overbrushed hair. Spencer slipped his hand in his pocket, wondering if he was brave enough, or stupid enough, to do what he was thinking…

In the end, he decided that he was, and slipped the hand with the soggy pea out, throwing it gently at her and stepping back warily as it bounced from her nose and rolled under the sink.

Emily, stunned, said nothing for the longest time before she began to laugh.

“You’re _disgustingly_ weird,” she announced. “Can I come see the hare?”

“Sure,” he said, but let her lead the way. Less likely he’d get pea’d.

There was something to be said for not liking each other, especially when they were making the most of it.


	4. The Trouble With Names

It was the day before Elizabeth left and, in both sometimes houses, the inhabitants were miserable for very different reasons.

 

Spencer, standing in his room and looking down on what was a clear attempt by his hare to eat his way through the drywall, was wondering just how he was going to hide this from his mother. His bedroom was barely unpacked, all boxes and books scattered around, and all of his clothes hung neatly and perpendicularly in the closet. A chessboard sat on the ground by the box where the hare had, until this moment, been sleeping—now the box was empty, the chess pieces were gone, and there was almost a hole in his wall.

Uh oh, he thought, worrying that this might be the end of having his first ever friend.

 

Emily, sitting in her mother’s study with her knees tucked together and hands resting upon them, was miserable for entirely another reason. Her schoolbooks were lined up in front of her on the desk that was only ever cleared off for a few reasons; this, working out just how Emily was to grow up Effectively, was one of them.

“Stop pouting at me,” Elizabeth scolded her. “I’m allowing you far more choice than I had at your age. Not to mention, outside of your studies, you’ll still have plenty of time to play. Perhaps Spencer will be available.”

That, unsurprisingly, didn’t make Emily feel much better.

“Now, Diana will be here to supervise your tuition while I’m gone, but I’ll also be expecting regular reports. I’m listing your Italian as a must for improvement—”

“But I _hate_ Italian. Can’t I take Spanish again?”

“No. Life is filled with things that you’ll hate—you have to do them anyway. And your Spanish is fluent, you hardly need the extra work. Now, for fun. Music, dance, or art?”

Emily rather thought she wanted to answer, “None of the above.”

“Art,” she said finally, watching her mother fill in the two-hour block after lunch on Fridays. “Diana’s an _English_ professor, I asked. How’s she supposed to teach me art?”

“You’ll travel into town to see an instructor. The social exposure will do you good. I believe she has a sizable class, so you’ll be exposed to many different people—any rudeness and I’ll hear about it.”

“Can I have Thursdays off?” Emily asked hopefully, wilting as little as first the morning block was filled in with ‘mathematics’ and then ‘history’ immediately after. Further into her chair she sunk, spotting Thursday night being filled with Catechism class, the afternoon taken up by the dreaded Italian. Tuesday looked very much the same.

She knew better than to ask for Sundays off, watching the morning being filled in for mass.

“Two more,” probed Elizabeth, tapping her pen on the schedule that was only the start of this procedure, Emily knew. Next, they would set ‘goals’ for Emily to aspire to, the unspoken warning of what would happen if she failed to reach those goals…

“Arabic, please,” she said finally, caving as she figured that at least kind of knowing that already would make it easier. “Since that’s a _big_ language, maybe I don’t need another—”

“All languages are big, Emily. Don’t be childish.”

And Emily sighed and muttered, “French, then,” sure that stupid _Spencer_ didn’t have to do all this with his summer.

 

Spencer, meanwhile, was moving a cupboard. In the built-in closet, he could hear furious chewing occurring, and winced at every woody _crack_ from the protesting door.

“Stop,” he whispered frantically to the door. What was he going to _do?_ His mom would make him get rid of his hare if this kept up—and he couldn’t get rid of him! They weren’t _done_. “You’re being awful. Do you want to get put back outside—there’s no books out there, I won’t be able to read to you anymore.”

The chewing paused, following by grumbly huffs. Spencer shoved the cupboard against the wall, making sure it hid the splintered bits. There. Now it was his _future_ problem.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asked the closet, which sneezed. Spencer sat down and began to think, flipping slowly through his current notebook filled with the adventures him and his hare still had to have.

They weren’t _done_.

 

Emily was released, finally, slinking her way outside and taking out her anger about a wasted summer on anything that was dumb enough to get in her way. She kicked rocks, because that wasn’t ladylike, and snapped flowers, because that wasn’t _grown-up_ , and she was sick of being expected to be both of those things. Today’s ribbon was ‘accidentally’ lost crawling under a bush, knees dragging nicely to leave big runs in her stockings, and she was careful to find a mud-puddle with just the right amount of grit to leave her shiny shoes not so shiny anymore. Once done with that, she went to find a tree to climb, because little girls in dresses weren’t supposed to climb trees and she was sick of being both of those things as well.

Up and up and up the tree she went, not even mad when her untied hair caught and tangled on every stick and leaf and she lost a shoe, poking her tongue out at it as it tumbled down down down…

“Ow,” said the ground.

Emily blinked, craning over her branch to see why the ground had spoken. It wasn’t the ground or anything as interesting as that. Disappointingly, it was a pair of smudgy glasses staring back up at her, his arms filled with a large box and her shoe laying on the ground beside him.

“Why’d you throw your shoe at me?” he asked.

“Why’d you stand under my shoe?” she countered.

Neither seemed to have an answer for the other, just watching each other warily. Emily resented Spencer for his apparent freedom; Spencer was squinting behind his glasses from the twin warring desires of not wanting to get hit with her _other_ shoe if he looked away against not wanting to see up her dress.

And there they stayed for an awkward three minutes.

Finally, Emily climbed down, because she wanted to see what was in the box and also because she kind of felt a little bad about hitting him with her shoe, even though she hadn’t meant to. Once down, she studied the holes in the side of the cardboard, spotting an eye watching her back.

“The hare’s alive,” she said, surprised.

Spencer nodded carefully.

“And you kept it?”

Another slow nod.

“Oh.” Emily shuffled her foot, wincing at how lopsided she felt in one shoe. To fix that, she kicked the other shoe off, frowning down at the damp dirt staining her stockings. To fix _that_ , she peeled her stockings off too, chucking them into the bush. There. Now she couldn’t get in trouble.

When she turned back, Spencer was staring open-mouthed at her.

 

Spencer had never met anyone quite like this stick-haired, dirty-faced girl before. He was starting to think that she was some kind of changeling, dressed all pretty in a nice dress but with muddy, bare feet and hands that were bleeding. As he watched, she sucked on a cut on her thumb and asked around the grubby appendage, “What are you doing with him?” while pointing to the hare.

She was like no girl he’d ever met before, and maybe that’s why he told her. He wasn’t very good at breaking rules.

She seemed to be fantastic at it.

“He ate a wall, so now I’m hiding him.”

Emily stared and stared and stared until, finally, she cackled and said, “Cool. Need help? I know all the best hiding places around here—I have to hide a ton of things from Mom.”

And he said, “Yes, please,” because some things—like protecting his friend from getting in trouble—were far more important than staying mad at weird girls with dirty knees.

Emily replied, “I know _just_ the place.”

 

The place turned out to be her father’s office, Emily happily opening a drawer and dumping the contents out in order to fill it with stolen lettuce.

“Won’t he… notice?” Spencer said warily as he walked a lap of the room studying the walls to see if they were chewable. “I mean, a hare is kind of… obvious.”

“Nah,” Emily said. “He’s gone away on business.”

“Oh. What kind of business?”

Emily scrunched her nose in reply, because she didn’t really understand the business and she also really didn’t like not understanding something. “Business business,” she replied pertly. “Something to do with beds. He’s _important_.”

“I bet he is,” Spencer replied, looking away. He thought, but didn’t say, that it would be nice to have a dad that was absent for a reason instead of just being _absent_. “Won’t someone find him in here? You have people who work here, right?” As strange as that was to consider, he knew there were people working here—had already introduced himself to several.

“Nah. No one is allowed in here. Mom was mad about his business, so she closed it up and said not to ever open it, ever. What’s his name?”

“Your dad’s?” Spencer was confused for a second, crouching to open the box and let the hare out into his new home. The hare, also confused, looked around and made a beeline for the lettuce.

“No, idiot. The _hare’s_.”

Spencer breathed deeply. Kids at school had always hated his names for things, laughing and teasing him for it, but he’d named the hare and now he had to live with that. Otherwise Emily would call him the wrong name, and it was awful to be called something you weren’t.

“Baltharog.”

Baltharog the Hare, without much care for how determinedly Spencer was bracing to defend his name, and also without much care for Emily’s stunned grin, continued eating his way through the lettuce, while also eyeing what looked like a wonderful place to make a nest.

“That’s not a name,” said Emily gleefully.

“It is so. It’s _his_ name. Emily wasn’t a name until someone named something with it, and now it is a name and you should be thankful, otherwise you’d probably be Bertha or Maggie or—”

“Spencer?”

Spencer scowled. “That’s a boy name.”

And Emily folded her arms and declared, “Sure, but only until someone names a _girl_ Spencer, and then it becomes a girl name too. Right?”

“…Right.”

“So, there.” Emily looked at the hare, who was looking at her dad’s collection of antique encyclopedias. “Baltharog is a dumb name for a hare, but it’s too late now. He’s stuck with it. Next time, ask me to help—I’m really good at naming things.”

Spencer just scowled.

“Well, what now?” Emily asked, bored already with this. The hare was hidden, and named—stupidly—and she wanted to do something before the slog of lessons started up again. “Want to come climb trees with me?”

Spencer, who’d never climbed a tree before, immediately answered with a rash, “No,” and winced as he saw how hurt she looked. “I mean, maybe? I don’t know. I’ve never… climbed.”

“Oh, well, that’s simple.” Emily bounced to the door, checking for escaping hares as she reached for the handle. “You just have to not fall out. Come on. Bye, Balthy.” Because she was sure that _every_ kid knew how to climb a tree, even if they’d never done it before.

Spencer looked at Baltharog, who sneezed again. “Bye, Baltharog,” he said glumly. “If I don’t come back, finish the story without me.” Because he was sure he was about to fall to his doom.

And Baltharog said nothing, because he was a hare.


	5. At the Top of the Willow

“Right,” said Emily, marching barefoot through the garden with Spencer trailing after and wondering if his shoes were in danger. “We need to find the right tree.”

“Won’t any tree do?” Spencer asked. They all looked the same to him, aside from differences in height and width and relative commonality to this geographical area—

Emily snorted, shooting him a look that was haughty. “Nope,” she announced. Pointing to a tree that they passed, one with thin, whippy branches, she informed him, “That one has branches that will bend under your weight. You’ll fall out for sure. And, see that one? With the papery bark? It’s full of _spiders_.”

Spencer edged away from that one quickly, his hand snapping back from where he’d been about to touch it.

“There are some big trees down by the lake though,” she continued cheerfully, grabbing a stout branch and swinging it merrily, already imagining that it was a walking stick that would help her traverse these wild lands and beat back any perverts she bumped into on the way. Emily did a lot of imagining, although she was far too proud to admit it. “Those are good to climb. I almost broke my arm in one once!”

Spencer was a little unsure as to why she said this so gleefully, as though it was a good thing. On the whole, he was rather fond of his bones remaining intact.

“Was that fun?” he asked.

“Oh, definitely. I got a ton of cake from the staff and everyone at school signed my cast and I didn’t have to do PE and even Dad came home to see if I was okay! I told Mom that I slipped in the snow, though. She’d have probably made a rule against tree-climbing otherwise.”

Following Emily and her branch down a narrow path to the lakeside, leaving the main lawns of the house, Spencer wondered if she did that a lot, lying. It didn’t really seem right. He wouldn’t ever lie to his mom in order to avoid a rule being made—if she thought there should be a rule, then there was almost certainly a reason.

“What if we break our arms again?” he asked.

“Oh, we won’t. That was in wintertime. It’s not winter now. The branches won’t be as slippery.”

That seemed sensible enough.

But Emily wasn’t done: “It’d be good if we did though, don’t you think?”

Spencer decided right then: no girl was worth this. One hint of arm breaking, and he was out of there—back up to the house to finish writing stories with Baltharog. _Baltharog_ would never take him somewhere he could break his arm.

But, this decision was promptly forgotten as they arrived at Emily’s favourite climbing tree.

“It’s a weeping willow,” he said, craning his neck up to stare at the tree that towered over them both, its roots sunken deep except for where they tumbled out of the soil to grip tightly at the bank. To get to the trunk, they’d have to walk under a veil of leaves, sunlight dappling the floor below with gold and green, the leaves whispering slightly in the wind and leaving trails of ripples on the quietly lapping lake. “Whoa.”

“You can get _all_ the way to the top,” Emily told him, her bare toes digging into the mud. She was watching him and, in the moment that he looked at her, she looked terribly worried for some reason.

 

He didn’t know it then, but this was because Emily, for all her bravado, had everything in the world except for a friend. Maybe, just maybe, if this boy liked her favourite tree, he’d like her too. After all, the girl who had found that the best experience of her recent life was a broken arm because every one of the busy adults in her life had suddenly found the time to spare for her, was sure that he’d never like her for her.

And Emily would have never guessed that Spencer was lonely too.

 

“What can you see from the top?” Spencer asked, inching forward. It looked incredibly exciting, and scary, and he pictured Emily falling from it in winter onto the flat ice of the lake below and shivered.

“That’s a secret,” said Emily, looking away so he didn’t see her start to blush. She’d tell him… once he got to the top. Only then did she know she could trust him, even if she didn’t like him much—and was sure that she never would. “Race you to the top?”

“I don’t know how to _climb_. Did you forget?”

She had.

“Hmm.” Tossing her branch aside, Emily grabbed his skinny arm and hauled him under the veil of leaves, the sunlight vanishing and leaving them lost in the dappled shadows. With shade and light playing across their features, Emily barefoot and Spencer dressed so neatly in comparison, anyone spying on them would have thought much the same as they had: surely these were faerie children, playing together where they thought they’d be hidden. And, at the base of the trunk, Emily launched herself up the tree, paused, and held out her hand to the worried boy looking up at her. “Come on,” she told him, twitching her fingers. “Just step where I tell you. I won’t let you fall.”

And she didn’t.

 

They reached the top, the branches grumbling slightly under them and a bird nearby scolding them for their proximity to her nest. Two ruffled heads broke the crown of leaves, Emily shuffling across on the wide branch that was holding her up in order to let Spencer sit himself down next to her. And she pointed: “Look. That’s what’s at the top.”

Spencer looked. It was late afternoon and the lake was golden and white, the forests around it capped with yellow. Where the sun dipped, it brought with it light, shadows reaching low beneath it in anticipation of the coming nightfall. Along the far bank, where the trees blocked the sun as it fell, the lake was black, black, black and terrifyingly deep. Not even the signs of life around it, boats and other houses with lights snapping on, took away the wildness of that moment for them.

“Amazing,” said Spencer, who thought it might be one of the most amazing things indeed, that he _lived_ by this. That he could see this every night if he wanted, if only he could climb without Emily guiding him.

“It has a name,” Emily whispered. This was a secret that only she knew, this name. But Spencer had gotten to the top of the tree—therefore, he’d earned it.

“The tree?”

“No, all of this. Everything we can see up here. So long as we’re on this branch, we can see _it_.”

Spencer was mystified. “What’s _it?”_

In answer, Emily pointed, to the thick bank of tall pines that were cutting off the light. “See how the light comes through the trees a little still? That’s not from the sun.”

“It’s not?”

“Nope.” Her voice lowered a little more, and she shuffled closer to him. “It’s from _witches_. They can only come out at night but they’re scared of the dark—so now that the pines there are almost in night time, they’re getting ready and casting magic that only they can see—like invisible nightlights.”

Spencer stared at the lights on the water. “But we can see them?” he asked doubtfully, pretty sure what he was staring at was just refraction of light on the water from the sun.

“That’s because we’re on this branch. It lets us see everything—like that mountain over there. That’s actually a _dragon_. See, he’s blowing smoke.”

The smoke, to Spencer, looked like clouds, but he squinted anyway. Maybe… maybe that was a head? An awfully big head…

“Hmm,” he said doubtfully.

“And over there! Guess what lives at that house?”

Spencer looked. It was getting harder to see with night falling, but he tried anyway. “Horses?” he guessed, seeing what looked like jumps set up on the paddock beside the lake.

“ _Unicorns_. But not like you think—they’re big and mean and pretend to be horses, so they can drag you into the water and eat you.”

Spencer blinked. “Horses don’t… eat meat?”

“These ones do.”

They looked over at the stables. In the water between them, something splashed loudly, some kind of animal shriek floating over the lake.

“Oh no,” Emily said happily. “Looks like they got someone.”

But, when she looked at Spencer again, her smile vanished, because he was frowning. Uh oh.

Uh oh.

Emily began to think that she’d made a mistake telling someone. Quickly, she tried to cover: “But I don’t really believe that,” she said firmly, feeling her face beginning to burn. “I mean, they’re just dumb stories I thought up, really stupid. Kid stuff. Forget I even told you, it’s—”

“What’s it called?” Spencer asked. When Emily looked confused, he pointed. “ _It._ Everything we can see. The witches and dragon and unicorns—what’s it called? It has to have a name. All adventurous things have names. All my adventures have names.”

“Um.” Emily was flustered. Did he really like it? “Um, well, I thought it up when I was _really_ little, last year, so I don’t… it’s not the _best_ name…” But he just kept looking at her, all curious and nice-looking and not laughing at her at all, so she said, “It’s the Sparkling Ravenway.”

He blinked. “ _Why?”_ he asked, nose wrinkling.

“Because it’s sparkling,” she said, duh. “And it’s a way over there. And ravens are cool and scary, and it’s a little scary too. There are trolls in these woods, for example, and they eat homework and also kids. And, besides, it’s a real _romantic_ name too, I think.”

Spencer still hadn’t unwrinkled his nose. “Does it _need_ to be romantic?”

“All adventures are romantic,” Emily assured him.

“Lord of the Rings isn’t romantic…”

“Then it isn’t a proper adventure. At least _one_ thing has to be romantic for it to be an adventure, and someone has to get a kiss. It doesn’t matter who, just someone. So, for example, if we go on an adventure to explore it all—” She said this because, ever since she’d first climbed this tree and decided there was magic at the top of it, she’d always wanted to walk to each distant point and find out for herself. “—and we find two people in love who kiss, then it’s a proper adventure.”

Spencer nudged his glasses up his nose and waved away a bug. “Is this an adventure?” he asked, thinking that maybe Emily had a very narrow idea of adventure.

“Sure. I mean, the name is romantic and no one got kissed that we saw, but maybe it happened somewhere over there.” Emily thought about it for a bit. “Besides, we found Balthy a home. Maybe Balthy has a princess somewhere, and they kissed. Or, maybe it doesn’t need to have a kiss if it has a hare. Every adventure has an animal!”

 

Emily had spent a lot of time watching TV and had a well-meaning aunt who supplied her with children’s adventure novels and Disney movies. When Spencer, who had grown up on classical novels and medieval poetry, was older, he’d think that this explained a lot about her.

Emily would always deny that adamantly.

 

“I write stories sometimes,” he confessed. “About things I make up, when I’m bored. Baltharog helps me.”

Emily bristled. “My stories aren’t _made up_ ,” she snapped, bouncing the branch angrily. Spencer clung on. The bird, wisely, took off. “And they’re not stories! They’re _real.”_

“My stories are real too! I mean, I make them up, but once they’re written down, they’re real.”

And, just like that, they both realised what they could do.

“Oh,” said Emily. “What if… what if we go on adventures and you write it down? Like, I’m the proper adventurer and you’re the storyteller—then once you see them for yourself, you’ll know they’re real! And we’ll have them written down, which _proves_ it. We could go to the Sparkling Ravenway and the Unicorn Danger and the Troll—”

“Okay,” Spencer said hurriedly, “but I think we should think of different names because, uh, yours are _good_ , but, um…” He wasn’t a very good liar, so he trailed off there on the slim hope that maybe different names would remove any thought of these being romantic adventures, which just sounded rather unnecessary and kind of gross.

The fight that probably would have followed that was forestalled by someone calling Emily’s name, both of them scurrying out of the tree at a speed that almost invited broken arms. Back home to their different Sometimes Houses they raced, both as filthy as the other now. Emily, to be scolded for the state of her clothes; Spencer, to be excitedly quizzed about the ‘heroic adventures’ of his day.

 

And, with that, as the sun vanished and took with it the magic of the lake, their first adventure was over.


	6. A Kissing Adventure

Emily wasn’t a very common sight around the gardens that summer. Spencer was a little envious of the special classes she was taking with Diana Reid, having looked over the coursework Diana was preparing for her and been sorely jealous that _he_ wasn’t able to learn such new and interesting things. Emily, he decided, must surely have the best kind of life, being given so much to do.

Emily did not share this opinion. From her desk in her study, she could look out over the garden and see the lawns and the tips of the ever-so-climbable trees and, worst of all, she could see Spencer enjoying his summer. Sometimes he was flopped on the lawn reading. Sometimes he marched in circles doing nothing that she could understand, and she was always curious to know what he was doing when she saw him being inexplicable. Sometimes, and this was the worst, he was playing chess alone. She was _great_ at chess—her daddy had taught her. It was the worst possible thing to see this boy having fun at chess when she couldn’t be down there showing him how good she was.

On this day, Emily had had enough, and she waited until Diana left her with a stack of worksheets on French before slipping out of the window and down the waterpipe, sprinting into the trees in the direction she’d seen Spencer marching that morning. It was hot and bright and a perfect kind of day for an adventure, she decided, a _proper_ one. All she needed was a companion.

Since Balthy wasn’t exactly sold on going to walks, that left Spencer, who—ever since the tree—she suspected wasn’t so stupid after all.

 

Spencer was looking for birds. He’d made up a notebook of every bird native to this area—although he’d realised he may need to make another for invasive and migratory species too—and was marching around the garden with his neck crinked back and his eyes skyward, ready to tick them off on his summer project: see every bird. Well, every bird he could, considering his short legs and relative dependence on his mother for transportation.

At this moment, he was studying a tree overhead and trying to work out the species of the one he could see hopping around up there, wishing he had some sort of magnifying device or something to sneak closer—

_Thump!_

Emily had leapt out of the bushes, both feet forward, and landed next to him with a _rah!_ Startled, Spencer fell over, arms waving for a second in both an attempt to stop himself falling, and also to fend off whatever was attacking.

“You’re amazingly dorky,” Emily declared, leaning over him and grinning. Spencer scowled. “Get up. Put that book away, dorky. We’re having an adventure, a proper one.”

“Oh no,” said Spencer, who remembered that ‘proper’ adventures required romance and at least one kiss.

“Oh, _yes_. Why do you have a book anyway? It’s summer.”

“Reading is a stimulating pastime,” Spencer said glumly, standing up and brushing dirt from his corduroys. Emily, today, was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, both slightly too small for her and—unbeknownst to him—having been dug out of where she’d hidden them years ago. Her mother hated them, therefore, they were Emily’s favourite clothes, only to be worn when Elizabeth was away. “You should try it sometime, instead of jumping out of trees and scaring people.”

“Scaring people is a stimulating pastime,” Emily retorted, assuming that stimulating meant exciting and figuring that Spencer sure did look pretty excited right now. “Besides, your name is now Greg and you can’t read. Companions are usually much stupider than the main characters.”

“Why are _you_ the main character?”

“Because it was my idea.” Emily saw Spencer scowl and hurriedly worked to compromise—it wouldn’t do to have him decide he didn’t want to play anymore, not when they hadn’t even had one proper adventure yet. “You can be the main character next time _and_ pick the adventure. I promise.”

After all, next time was at least _days_ away.

“Fine,” said Spencer, tucking his notebook into his backpack and closing the zip. “Who are you then? If I’m Greg.”

“I’m…” Emily thought about that. “Marvellous. My name is Marvellous, and I’m a prince and you’re my loyal subject, Loyal Greg. It’s your job to do everything I don’t do, like baths and eating poison and… _oh_.” She beamed. “That’s the adventure!”

“Baths?”

“ _No_ , eating poison! You stopped the evil witch from poisoning me in order to take over the kingdom and now you’re dying from a deadly poison, so we have to go on a proper adventure to save you.”

Spencer stared. “I stopped it by… eating it? Why did I eat it? Why didn’t I just tell you your food was poisoned?”

“Because we don’t speak the same language. I’m a _French_ prince.” She thought about that for a moment, history lessons popping into her head. “Uh. I’m a French prince, before they all got killed. One of the good ones. Anyway, hurry up, the poison is _murdering_ you every minute we wait. Hurry, Loyal Greg!” And she turned in a circle, wondering where poison antidotes where kept, before running towards the lake.

Spencer, with a sigh, followed placidly.

And a proper adventure began.

 

Loyal Greg nee Spencer began quickly to succumb to the effects of the poison he’d drunk for his prince, for some reason. Before they managed to reach the lake, Prince Marvellous had described to him in excruciating detail just how many terrible things were occurring within his body right now. He was a little unsure that eyeball popping was needful, although very impressed that she knew the word ‘necrotic’.

“Alas,” Emily declared, lowering the branch she’d declared her steed—Spencer, as a companion, did not get a horse and therefore had to run alongside on foot—and turning to look down sadly where he was laying on the ground where she’d told him to lay. She thought he was doing a very good job looking up blankly into the trees, just like someone without eyeballs would probably look. He was wondering if the bird above them was a starling or a blackbird, and if Loyal Greg knew how to write in order to take note of it. “Alas, my dear Greg, it appears you’ll be dead soon. I was wrong. The lake doesn’t have the antidote.”

“Oh no,” said Spencer, who was hungry and a little bored of having to lay in dramatically dead positions. “Well, I guess the adventure is almost over then.”

“Of course not,” Emily told him. “I mean, if you died, I’d just have to go down into the dead place and bring you back. I’m not going to let my friend die forever.”

Spencer blushed, feeling a little pleased about this. No one had ever told him they’d go into the _underworld_ for him.

“Thanks, Em,” he said.

“Shh,” was the reply. “By this point, your tongue has fallen off. You can only gargle.”

Maybe it was for the best that poor Greg would be dead soon. He didn’t really have much to survive for. Obediently, he made a soft gargling noise, the bird flying away overhead. Bother.

 

Emily was thoughtful. She couldn’t let him _die_. That wasn’t an adventure—that was a tragedy, and she wasn’t dressed for a tragedy today.

Ah.

She worked it out.

“You need a kiss,” she announced, Spencer sitting bolt upright and staring at her. “That will fix you. A true love’s kiss!”

“Uh,” said Spencer. “Does Greg have a true love?” Just as he’d feared; the adventure was about to get _romantic._

“Yes! Me, Prince Marvellous! After all, you’re dying for me. That _has_ to be true love, right?”

“Right.” They watched each other warily, neither really sure what was supposed to happen now. “Uh. Does it have to be… on the _mouth?”_

Emily wanted to say no, but she was afraid that: “Yeah, sorry. It’s always on the mouth.”

“Ah.”

They looked at each other some more.

Emily marched over and kneeled, leaning closer and pausing. Spencer, in response, shrunk back and made the most horrendous face, all puckered and weird and with big, wide eyes. She was a little impressed—it was the kind of face she’d expect from someone dying of poison. He was really committed to this adventure.

Spencer, meanwhile, was wondering if he was making the right face for kissing. This was what they did right? With their mouths?

Before he could think it through, Emily darted forward and touched her lips to his, skittering back quickly with her cheeks bright pink. It was barely a kiss and he brushed his fingers against his mouth, feeling his lips open a little in surprise.

“Nope,” Emily said, her own hand on her mouth. “Looks like you’re still dying. Guess I’m not your true love after all. Hmm.”

Kissing, Spencer decided, was clearly overrated.

But Emily had another idea.

 

“Oh no,” said Spencer, looking down at his ‘true love’.

“ _Do_ it,” Emily goaded, bounce back and force in excitement. This was it—a real, proper, romantic adventure! After all, Greg was technically Spencer, and Spencer didn’t love anyone like he loved—

“I don’t think Baltharog wants to be kissed,” said Spencer nervously, watching the hare chew thoughtfully on half a carrot. “Do hares kiss?”

“Sure, they do, if they want to save their loves from dying of poisoning. Come on. I’m hungry—if you kiss him, I’ll get food for both of us from the kitchen. I bet there’s cake. There always is on Wednesdays.”

And, with the temptation of cake spurring him on, Spencer leaned down and attempted to kiss his hare, sure that this was going to end terribly. Emily, once the ruckus was over and Balthy had been calmed down, declared him free of all poison, a proper adventurer, and then marched him off to the kitchen for cake and a Band-aid for his bitten nose.

But she thought that maybe, on their next adventure, they might skip the kissing part, touching her lip again and wondering why adults made such a big fuss over it. After all, she really didn’t fancy kissing _Spencer_ again, not ever.


	7. Mango Overboard

A storm blew in. On the lake, boats rocked about wildly with the vicious waves. The trees around the Sometimes homes waved with the wind, branches bowed with the weight of the summer rainfall. Emily was sure that this was the biggest storm in the history of forever and that their houses would slip right into the lake and be swallowed up forever. Also, even worse than that, she was _bored._ Classes were cancelled because Diana wasn’t feeling well, and Emily was alone in her big old house, wandering empty halls and singing softly to herself under the _crackboom_ of thunder outside and the sweeping gusts of torrential rain.

She wandered into the kitchen where the lady who cooked for her was putting the final touches on their dinner before going home for the night. “I think I’ll be a great fish,” Emily announced, sliding onto the stool and leaning her hands on her chin as she watched Abby kneed the dough.

“Oh, really?” asked Abby, more interested in the dough than fish. The lights flickered, Emily’s eyes flickering up to watch them nervously. “Now, Miss Emily, you know what to do to get your dinner tonight? I’m off early because of the storm, so it’ll be up to you to microwave it when you’re hungry.”

“I know, I know,” Emily said impatiently, who wasn’t at all interested in the dough. “When the lake swallows this house up, will you still cook for us? You might have to swim a bit.”

“Don’t get paid much to swim,” Abby responded. “Besides, I should think your tutor’s house is far more likely to fall in the lake than this one. Your mother paid a fortune for the drainage around this place.”

Emily thought about that. Would she be sad if Spencer was eaten by the lake? Probably not, besides, she could visit him. He’d make an interesting fish, although maybe he wouldn’t be able to read as much.

“I better go make sure he’s okay,” she announced, like a proper hero would, standing and marching to the door.

“Raincoat!”

Rolling her eyes, Emily turned back. What _hero_ wore a raincoat?

 

In his own home, Spencer was laying on his bed watching the light overhead flicker. His mom wasn’t well today, staying in bed the whole day through and telling him to heat up some pasta for his dinner. He didn’t mind pasta and made sure to heat her up some too, but now it was sitting all heavy and worried in his stomach as the thunder went _boom_ again and the lights dimmed. If the power went out, so would his nightlight… and then the darkness would be absolute.

There were very few things Spencer was scared of more than he was of absolute darkness.

He distracted himself from that worry by worrying instead about Balthy. The thunder was so terribly loud—what if Emily had left the window open and the room flooded and Balthy _drowned?_ Spencer leapt up, walking to the window and peering out into the dark, rain-swept night. Maybe he could make a dash to the house and check… if he could find a flashlight…

But there was someone already outside. Spencer pressed his nose to the glass, leaving a foggy circle where his breath touched it as well as a smeary nose-mark, and then realised who it was. Who else _marched_ like that, and he doubted any of the staff were that short, or had bright purple rain slickers.

Sighing, he ran downstairs to let Emily in.

 

“Hello,” said Emily cheerfully when he opened the door. “Have you ever slept in a library before?”

 

Permission was granted, and Diana walked them both back to the main house, holding the umbrella for them so that they could carry Spencer’s bag of clothes, the books he _needed_ to bring, and his chess set.

“Do you need me to stay?” Diana asked Spencer as they opened the library door and Emily dashed inside, already planning where they would put the sleeping bags and where the chess board would go and which door they’d have to guard against monsters in the night. “There’s a room downstairs set aside for us if we ever needed it.”

‘If we ever needed it’ was mother code for ‘if Emily turns out to take the inch we’ve given her and run a mile, requiring more complete supervision’, but Spencer didn’t need this. He, much like Emily, assumed that ‘if we ever needed it’ was probably code for ‘if your house falls into the lake’.

Diana had requested the room as, unlike Elizabeth, she was often quite saddened by the idea of the little girl alone in the too-big house.

“No thank you, Mom,” Spencer said politely, kissing her cheek and smiling. “It’s not much of an adventure if my mom is here, and Emily is all about proper adventures.”

Smiling, and glad that Spencer had a friend, Diana left him there—but not without first showing him that she’d packed both his nightlight and a flashlight into his bag, if he decided that he needed either.

“So, why’d you want to sleep in the library?” Spencer asked Emily as they made up their beds; this mostly consisted of Spencer making both beds, as Emily had never really thought through the function of a sheet before and had mostly just formed a kind of nest out of her pile of linen. Outside, more thunder rattled the wide windows, the book-lined walls drowning out most of the noise of the storm.

“Because it’s definitely safer in here than in your house,” Emily told him. “I didn’t want you to get washed away without me—think of the adventures you’d have.”

“Huh,” said Spencer. “Did you know there’s an underwater forest in Lake Washington? It got washed away one day, and now it just _exists_ down there.”

Emily had not known that. “Cool,” she breathed, imagining everything that would live down there. “Oh, I _did_ know.”

She hadn’t, but she’d decided otherwise.

“I did know that,” she continued lying, “because that’s where Mango lived, before it got sunk.”

Spencer, who was thinking about Balthy again, looked strangely at her. “Who’s Mango?”

“He’s a unicorn, a nice one. Why are you looking at the door?”

Spencer shrugged, worried, and then blurted out, “Don’t you think it would be cool if Balthy came and slept in the library with us?”

Emily, who knew very little about the destructive capabilities of hares, thought that sounded _amazing._ And thus, the story of Mango was derailed as they strode off to fetch their pet.

 

Later that night, they’d decided that if they were grown up enough to sleep in a library, they were definitely grown up enough to not need a bedtime; this choice was entirely because they were basically adults now, and not at all because Emily was finding that the louder the storm got, the harder her heart beat, and definitely not at all because Spencer couldn’t work out if the flickering lights were scarier, or the prospect of Emily finding out that he slept with a nightlight.

Spencer, laying on his neatly made-up bed with Balthy asleep beside him and picking lettuce from his sheets, was happy just to treasure this moment. Emily had given him blank paper and pencils to draw with, and he was sketching out from memory the moves she’d made in the chess game they’d just played, trying to work out how she’d won by deconstructing her move-set.

Emily, cross-legged in her nest of blankets and sheets with her paper on her knees, was busy drawing Mango. He was a big unicorn, the biggest, with hooves like plates and bright red eyes. She gave him a purple mane too, and coloured him in the blackest of blacks, making sure that his slender horn was wonderfully spiky, for stabbing people with. No one messed with Mango—named such because the forest he lived in grew amazing mangos that he loved very much, and people came from all over to eat. _Black_ mangos.

“Balthy is getting fat,” Spencer said suddenly, looking at his hare and noting his chubby sides. “Maybe we should stop giving him biscuits. I don’t think they’re good for hares.”

“Have you asked his opinion on that?” Emily responded. She’d often been told that biscuits weren’t good for her and very much resented that she wasn’t given a say in the matter.

“Do you think we should give you less biscuits?” Spencer asked Balthy, using the tip of his pencil to scratch the hare’s ears. Balthy, who was very aware just how good he had it in this strange new inside world, just twitched his nose and kept on sleeping. “I’m not sure what a nose twitch means…”

“It means stop calling him fat, you’re making him shy,” Emily told him. “Look.” She put down the scissors she was using to carefully cut the shape of Mango out of the paper and held it up. “ _This_ is Mango. He used to live in that forest, and he was prince of it, before it got washed away.”

“Awful lot of princes around here,” Spencer noted, studying the unicorn and wondering what evolutionary advantage purple fur gave it. “Does he still live in the underwater forests? Can unicorns breathe underwater?”

“Sure, they can, they’re magic. And no, when it got washed away, he got _lost_. We have to take him home, because he has a girlfriend there and as many children as there are mangos, all of which he loves and misses and wants to see again.” Emily looked at her unicorn, a strange pang of sadness sunk deep in her chest. Poor Mango… “It’s not really that good for a dad to be away from his kids for so long without knowing when he’s coming home…”

Spencer swallowed. “No, it’s not,” he agreed. “Maybe when the rain stops, we can take him to the lake?”

Emily stood, shaking off pencils and blankets and running over to the window. She was determined: Mango _had_ to go home now. Not a moment more! “Help me,” she asked Spencer, seeing his wary glance as he came over and helped her push the window open, Mango flapping wildly in her hands as a gust of wind ripped in and startled Balthy awake.

“Balthy!” yelled Spencer, chasing his frightened hare under a desk as he bolted.

Emily, struggling to make sure the window didn’t crash open and shattered, yelped as the unexpectedly strong wind tore Mango from her hand and out into the storm, vanishing in a second. Rain smashed into her face when she leaned out and she quickly ducked back in, dragging the window shut and turning around with her face wet and sore from the wind, grinning wildly. What a _storm!_

_Thunk_ came from under the desk, Spencer emerging with Balthy in one arm, rubbing his head with the other. “Where’s Mango?” he asked, wondering if he was bleeding. Balthy huffed.

“I think he lives in the storm now.” That hadn’t really been the goal, Emily thought, but heck, maybe he liked it up there—maybe his daughter would just have to find him. “Are you—”

The lights went out.

Spencer screamed.

 

Fear was oddly contagious. Emily, who’d never been scared of the dark before, still screamed along with him—after all, if _Spencer_ was scared, there had to be something to be scared of. Balthy the hare vanished back under the desk, completely fed up with these atrociously loud humans, even as they scrambled for the bag with the flashlight and only managed to lose it further.

And this was how Diana found them, both of them crying with fear and hiding under the same blanket; a teary-eyed huddle of children blinking up at her flashlight beam when she pulled the blanket free from their heads. Arms around each other and clinging on for dear life, as though they also feared the loss of the other just as much as they feared the darkness surrounding.

“I think perhaps your library sleepover will have to wait until the power is back on,” Diana told Emily gently. “How about we all go and sleep in my living room with the fire going? I bet I even have _marshmallows_ in the cupboard, to chase away the monsters. Monsters hate excessive sugar.”

This, they all decided, would be a far more fun, and far less scary, adventure.


	8. An Unexpected Trip

On the morning following the night of the big storm, several things happened. One: Emily and Spencer woke and helped Diana make pancakes for breakfast, a very small happening that was very big for the both of them—for Emily, because she’d never been allowed to get her hands quite this sticky before, as Diana encouraged them to taste the maple syrup directly from the pitcher, and for Spencer because he’d never made pancakes with a friend before. He was endlessly proud of how wonderful his mother was and how well the pancakes turned out and how much fun Emily must have been having, which would guarantee that she’d definitely come back in the future.

Two: the girl hired to clean the larger of the homes arrived late for work, cranky because the roads were washed out and she didn’t want to get in trouble for her time-sheet being out. Fortunately, Abby was late too, therefore no one but the gardener moving broken branches from the lawns noticed her tardiness. However, she began work tired and anxious, which was entirely not the kind of mood one wanted to be in when about to suffer a great fright.

Three: the children, in their flight from the storm the night before, had forgotten someone.

 

Baltharog, who was a very easy-going hare, was not having a very good morning. This room was entirely devoid of good things for hares to eat, besides books which were chewy and papery and tasted very much like glue, and the boy who fed him wasn’t there in order to do his one job: feed him. It was a strange new room with strange new smells and, to make things worse, today was a very interesting day for Baltharog.

He would need a dark, hidden corner in order to be interesting in and, stomach still grumbling, he set about to find that, deciding that maybe books weren’t good to eat, but they sure were lovely to nest in.

 

Emily and Spencer were showered and dressed in wet-weather clothes and dutifully sent outside to help the gardener move branches. Diana, who was still feeling unwell, slipped back to bed and tried not to worry about how many of Emily’s lessons they would need to catch up on after this.

Emily and Spencer, who were always happy to help, regaled the gardener on stories of the storm the night before, how brave and wonderful they’d been as the wind had stolen Mango away—with Emily telling the tales and Spencer looking shy and uncomfortable every time the gardener looked at him to speak. And this continued until they were all thoroughly tired and muddy and thinking of a lunch they wouldn’t have, because right about then they heard a scream from the big house.

From the library of the big house.

“What’s that?” the gardener said, standing upright and frowning right as another scream sounded, this time twice as terrified. Telling the children firmly to stay put, he ran for the house, leaving a muddy line of boot prints down the polished halls as he ran to help.

Emily looked at Spencer. Spencer looked at her.

That scream had come from the library.

“Did we put Balthy back?” Spencer asked, horror sinking deep into his chest at the realisation.

“Uh oh,” was all Emily replied.

They ran after the man with his big boots and traps for hares and rabbits, both screaming, “Don’t hurt him!”

 

This was not a good day for Diana. Frantic knocking on her front door turned out to be one of the girls who was hired to clean the house, her face tear-streaked and panicked as she told Diana that, “The children have _vermin_ in the house.”

Very abruptly, Diana remembered Spencer’s brave hare, who Spencer had told her had returned to the wild. With a headache building and a slow whisper of misery growing in the back of her brain, Diana followed the silly girl back to the house, sure that there was no reason to be crying over a simple hare.

However, when she got there, she found that the maid wasn’t the only one crying over said hare.

“He’s going to eat Balthy!” screamed Emily, whose red face announced that she was in the middle of a temper tantrum the likes of which the house hadn’t seen since the day Elizabeth had told her she was to stay behind. “He’s a monster!”

“I’m not gonna eat it,” the gardener, Garett, was arguing, his hair sticking up from where he’d been running his hands through it. “I’m just gonna get it out from the books, Miss Prentiss!”

“To eat!” screamed Emily even louder. It appeared as though she’d decided their hare’s best chance of survival was if she was Very Loud about her opinion on it.

Spencer, who was for some reason wedged into the alcove of a shelf and peering out at them like a startled owl, was also crying. His was a much less showy crying, snotty and wet and shaking without any sound. “Mom,” he sobbed. “Balthy is _dying._ He’s making horrible sounds and breathing too fast and I think we _killed_ him.”

That, Diana decided, took precedent.

“Get some water,” she told Garett, striding forward to try and peer into the alcove her son and his hare were hidden in. “Didn’t you hear? Our friend is ill.”

“Our friend the… hare?” he replied.

“Yes. Don’t just stand there—he may need a vet.” Diana shot him her best ‘they will keep crying if we don’t fix this’ look, seeing him sigh and trod off, mud still dripping from his trouser legs. “You, girl—”

“Lizzie,” supplied the maid.

“Lizzie, yes, go get Abby. She’s more sensible than you by far. Imagine screaming about a _hare_.”

“Thought it was a rat,” the girl muttered, before vanishing.

Them gone, Diana looked at Emily, who sniffed theatrically. “No more screaming,” Diana warned her. “Hares despise loud sounds like little girls screaming.”

“Okay,” Emily agreed placidly, crawling up next to her and trying to look in as well. “Is he really dying? Will we have to have a funeral? We should bury the books he ate with him, so he has something to read.”

Diana suspected that that was more because Emily didn’t want to get in trouble, more so than it was about Baltharog being entertained in the afterlife. But she let that go, for now, easing Spencer out of the way and peering behind the desk to where there was a cozy nest made of torn books, half of a bedsheet, and a copious amount of fur. In the middle of that mess, was a very cranky looking hare, glaring at Diana with his ears folded back and making cross huffing sounds at all the people poking in.

Diana blinked.

“There’s _blood_ ,” whimpered Spencer.

“Really?!” Emily pushed up against Diana in her eagerness to see, accidentally kneeing Spencer in the side. “Cool!”

“Out,” Diana told them both, hearing a warning hiss from the hare, who was very busy being a very good hare and really didn’t need any help with that. “He’s not dying. And he, I think you’ll find, is most definitely a she.”

Two sets of puzzled eyes met her as the kids scampered out from under the desk.

“Your hare is having baby hares.” Diana couldn’t help the smile that snuck out at the immediate reaction from both children: Emily looked disgusted; Spencer looked betrayed.

“Balthy is a _girl?”_ Spencer, who didn’t mind his hare being a girl, not really, was a little upset that it seemed as though he’d spend the rest of his life surrounded by only girls, even his noble pet.

“Can we _watch_?” was Emily’s response, absolutely disgusted but also fascinated by the idea of something making more somethings in her library. “Wait, how did that happen?”

“I assume she was born a girl,” Spencer answered glumly, resigning himself. “I don’t think hares can just swap—”

“No, you idiot—”

Diana frowned.

“—how is she having babies? How do hares have babies?”

Diana, with a level of diplomacy Elizabeth herself would have envied, effortlessly side-tracked the conversation: “You can watch if you promise to be _completely_ silent, not a peep—not a single question, do you understand?”

Their mouths snapped shut, both nodding furiously as they enacted a short but fierce battle to get back where they could peer inwards at the labouring hare. Diana, who hadn’t expected compliance of this level, was a little unnerved to find them still sitting there an hour later, focused on the hare and still without speaking.

And there they stayed for the rest of the day.

 

Night had fallen, a quieter night than the one before. Emily was picking at her dinner, which she’d been allowed to eat in the library with Spencer, both working hard not to spill pasta sauce onto their fronts as they ate. Diana sat nearby, reading a book and keeping a wary eye on them lest they break the two cardinal rules: no sound to bother the new family behind the desk, and definitely no touching the new babies, _Emily._

Emily had a notebook on her knees that they’d been using to communicate the entire day, at this point mostly covered with Spencer’s scribbly handwriting as he tried to explain to her just what on earth was happening in that small gap. It had been a big day for her—she’d seen _blood_ and a weird sac thing that Balthy had _eaten_ and the babies had come out super gross and with their eyes all closed and, just, wow. Having babies looked awful. Awful and wet and dirty, and Emily was pretty sure that if she ever had babies, she’d be leaving _that_ to her husband, thank you very much. Especially the eating the afterbirth. Blerg.

_What are we going to name them?_ she wrote out carefully, watching him slurp up a string of pasta before reaching for the pen. As he wrote out his ideas, she leaned back and looked in at the sleepy bundles of fur, counting paws as she went. There were at _least_ eight babies in there, at least—that was so many new hares to look after! They were going to have an army of hares!

Spencer tapped her knee, handing her the notepad so she could add her own thoughts on there on their list of possible names: _Soulpepper. Tottlebrook? Ripley. Krugar. Bundanoon? Everlast? Bailey? George? Voxcross! Chutney._

She was pretty fond of Chutney, but _George?_ She underlined it and scowled at Spencer, who looked guilty.

_We can’t start an army of hares with one called **George**_ , she wrote firmly.

_Actually, a group of hares is called a drove or a kindle or a husk or a trip or_

She took the pen from him, since he was just going to be silly about it.

“Come on,” Diana said suddenly, appearing over them and looking down at the sleepy family. “Mama needs her rest now, with her babies, and so do you two.”

“We can’t leave them here,” Spencer argued, thinking of Emily’s surety that the gardener was going to eat them. “If we aren’t here from the very beginning, it could hinder the formation of attachments with us when they start moving around, and hares are precocial—they’ll start moving around within _hours_ , Mom—we need to be here for their first steps!”

Diana decided that perhaps the discussion of ‘the hare family would be much happier being a hare family outside’ was best left for tomorrow. Instead, she decided to once again be diplomatic.

“Do you promise not to touch them?” she asked. They both nodded furiously, Emily looking dangerously sweet and Spencer painfully hopeful. “And you won’t make any noise?”

“Not even a _sneeze_ ,” Emily said, right before sneezing. Oops.

 

Despite this, their pleading worked. Unknown to them, this was probably because they would soon be forced to say goodbye to their secret pet—but, for that night, it was just exciting enough that it had happened. They were allowed to sleep in the library, there to hear the excited squeaks of the leverets realising they’d been born.

 

“Hey, Spence,” Emily asked in the middle of the night, barely awake but still curious about something.

“Mm?”

“How _did_ Balthy make the babies?”

Spencer sat up, looking at her. He… didn’t know. But they were in a library. What better place to not know something?

“Let’s find out,” he answered, reaching for the book on birthing he’d been reading today to talk Emily through all the gory bits and skipping to the index. He was sure that, whatever he found out, it would have to be really cool—making a smaller version of yourself was _cool_ , right? And definitely not as gross as giving birth. Nothing was as gross as giving birth.

Right?


	9. Come Summer’s End

By the time summer ended, there was something very different about the Sometimes houses. In fact, there were several somethings.

The gardener had lost his battle to keep his gardens intact. In the rows of hedges lining the drive, he did his best to cover up the tunnels crawled through them, making sure that he cut the thorns from all the rose bushes nearby with the knowledge that there was a very strong likelihood that two precocious children would be having ‘adventures’ in them. The trees no longer stood quiet and untouched around the gardens; every one of them had, at some point, been conquered and climbed. The immaculate lawns showed the tread of feet running over them, a nearby wall dented from a ball kicked against it over and over again. And, in Emily’s room next to her bed, torn from being shoved into pockets and grubby from dirty hands, was a map of every trail, tunnel, and shortcut they’d claimed from the yard that was for only quiet contemplation no longer.

Emily’s bedroom was also changed as the season rolled onward and the weather began to cool. Empty more often than not, Emily had requested a camp mattress on the floor of Spencer’s room and spent more nights there than she did in her own house. Diana had become used to a breakfast table set for three and both children vanishing from the moment they ate to the moment it was time to come inside once more.

The children themselves were changed. Both had sunburned—both were now tanned, which was a startlingly new thing for the boy from the desert city, despite his hometown. Diana, wary of the questions that would be asked when Elizabeth returned to find Emily’s expensive clothes destroyed by their games, had taken the girl to a thrift shop and bought her two sets of ‘outside’ clothes of jeans and polos, buying Spencer much the same after a moment’s thought. Emily, naturally, was thrilled.

Baltharog, who’d been exiled from the big house and back into the garden with her new family, had her own Sometimes home now. The gardener, perhaps in an effort to reassure Emily that he didn’t plan on eating their hare, had built her a little burrow made of wood and tucked below a wide bush, perfect for hiding in and with plenty of room for the growing hoard of smaller hares. The smaller hares, now nearly a month old and fully weaned, wanted nothing to do with the children who came to stare at them from the bench nearby—where Diana told them firmly they must sit to watch the hares, lest they frighten them away for good by going closer—but Balthy appreciated the biscuits they brought with them. She was, after all, a very easy-going hare, lying sprawled by the bench as Spencer sat there and happily regaled her with the adventures he was now having with Emily, instead of by himself and with only a hare for company.

The biggest change between the end of summer and the beginning was probably the biggest: there was nothing like witnessing the beauty of childbirth together after a terrifying storm to ensure that a lifelong friendship had been formed, one cemented by a shared desire to adventure, a lingering fear of loneliness, and the realisation that Emily could finish her classes and homework twice as fast if Spencer helped her. The children were firm friends and sure that nothing could ever change that.

But summer always ended.

 

“Your mother will be home on Sunday, ready to see you off to school on Monday,” Diana told Emily, partly to inform her and partly to distract her from whatever she was planning to do to the poor tailor taking her measurements. School uniforms had been procured for her, Elizabeth’s instructions for them to be tailored to fit neatly proceeding as planned. It all seemed very odd to Diana, who wasn’t sure why an almost-eight-year-old needed to be so perfectly presented simply to go to school. “Are you excited?”

Emily shrugged violently, earning a scowl from the tailor.

“Shoulders straight,” the man said firmly. “Arms out, stop moving.”

“Do I have to do that?” Spencer whispered from behind Diana, sitting patiently on Elizabeth’s expensive couch with his hands on his knees, waiting for his friend to be finished so they could play.

“No, don’t worry,” Diana stage-whispered back, hearing Emily huff. “No chance of getting poked for you, boyo.”

The tailor now turned his glare onto Diana, probably resenting the implication that he was pricking Emily with the pins he was so carefully hemming her dress with. Emily, who was unhappy to be back into yet another dress that she was to keep ‘presentable’, took a deep breath. Diana saw the danger and decided to step in before the tailor got himself ‘accidentally’ kicked.

“What adventures are in store for my brave heroes on their last free weekend?” she asked, seeing Emily wilt.

“It’s not a free weekend,” she muttered. “I still have the stupid French dialogue to write, remember?”

“Maybe you should have done it last week like I told you too,” Spencer retorted. Diana watched with interest—her little wallflower had more bite in him than before, even standing up to his headstrong friend when he felt like it was needed. “Now we’re going to spend our last weekend writing _French.”_

“It’s Emily’s homework, not yours,” Diana pointed out, pretty sure that she should at least keep up a pretence that there wasn’t any collusion going on in her classroom.

Emily shrugged again, earning a long-suffering sigh. With as much dramatic effect as she could muster, she cast a miserable look at the neat pile of dresses still to be fitted. “Are they _all_ dresses?” she asked hopefully, already knowing the answer. “I hate dresses. I _hate_ uniforms. Why can’t I go to Spencer’s school? He doesn’t have a uniform…”

Diana didn’t answer that, wincing a little at the idea of Elizabeth Prentiss and her daughter walking into the public-school Spencer would be attending.

“I wish I had a uniform,” Spencer said wistfully. “Can I wear a tie anyway?”

But Emily’s lip was beginning to wobble dangerously, and Diana thought perhaps it would be prudent if they took a break before she broke down completely, citing lunch as a reason.

“Diana?” Emily whispered as they walked up the hall together, Spencer trailing behind and still rambling about the long and varied history of neckties. “Spencer’s still going to be here when I come home from school, right? He’s not going to leave?”

“Of course, he will be,” Diana replied, feeling a small hand creep into hers, Emily’s feet dragging on the floor. “Different schools are nothing—you’ll still be perfectly good friends when you return home.”

“Unless he makes better friends at school and forgets me…”

It was telling, Diana thought, that Emily never considered the possibility of her making other friends and leaving Spencer behind in turn.

 

Come Sunday, they were throwing bits of biscuit to Balthy and her brood, neither of them in the mood to really make the most of their last day of freedom.

“We’ll still have weekends,” Spencer said hopefully, watching Soulpepper chasing George in frantic, hoppy circles. “We can adventure on weekends. And I like school—I’m doing _two_ grades this year and my teachers have come up with this really—”

“It’s not the same,” Emily snapped. In a temper, she threw her biscuit so hard that it flew over the top of Balthy’s head and vanished into the bushes behind them, two leverets giving chase. “And, besides, I don’t _get_ weekends. I have lessons and church and just, blah. And Mom is going to make me go to functions again, I bet.”

“What are functions?” Spencer asked.

“Dinners and boring places with boring people and no kids, ever. They all smile at me and tell me nice things but they don’t actually want to talk to me and, even if they did, I’m supposed to be quiet and polite and only say certain things.”

That sounded very odd to Spencer. “What’s the point?”

“I don’t know. No one ever tells me. I don’t think any of them know the point of it either, they just do it because adults _do.”_ This, to Emily, sounded like a perfectly reasonable explanation. Adults were completely perplexing, from their functions to their manners right down to the _really_ weird stuff, like the baby-making. It had been very quickly decided after reading the reproduction book that they were never going to bring it up again, ever, although Emily sometimes stared at people with kids on the street now with her brain screaming _gross gross gross gross gross_ at the thought of what she knew had been done to get those kids.

“I’m never having kids,” she announced for the eightieth time since reading that book, Spencer making a low noise of distress at the reminder. He seemed to have taken it a lot more personally than she had, going through another five more books just to be sure since “that doesn’t sound _right.”_ “I think I’m going to grow up and be a hare.”

The hares, as though they just wanted to show off how great a life that would be, flopped in the sun and began to snooze.

“I’m going to be a recluse.” Spencer’s nose was still wrinkled unhappily, but he seemed sure of this. Emily looked quizzically at him. “I’ll live on a mountain and read a ton of books, or something. Maybe write a ton of books and never give an interview, like Thomas Pynchon. No one will know my name.”

He seemed very pleased by the idea of that.

“How will you publish books if they don’t know your name?” Emily asked curiously. “You’ve got to put your name on envelopes to send them through the mail.”

“I’ll use a pseudonym—a pen name. Like, um. Dr Joseph Bell.”

Emily stared. What a boring made up name. He was even boring in his _imagination_. “Your names _suck_ ,” she told him, shaking her head with disappointment. “If I was going to bother with a fake name, I’d make it cool. Like…” She looked around, for something cool, seeing only sleeping hares and biscuits. “Like. Um. Blackbird! That’s a cool name.”

But Spencer wasn’t listening to how cool her fake name would be anymore; instead, he was looking behind them to where the drive was barely visible. “Someone is here. Maybe your mom?”

Oh no.

Miserably, Emily brushed crumbs from her nicest skirt and trudged over the lawn to greet her mother, Spencer trailing behind.

Summer was _definitely_ over.

 

It wasn’t Elizabeth.

One moment, Spencer was walking behind the glumly trudging Emily, worrying about the fact that she wasn’t marching with her usual surety, the next she’d stopped dead and was staring at the person climbing out of their car. Spencer stared too. It was a man. Spencer had never seen him before, although he guessed by Emily’s shocked stance, she—

“Daddy!” screamed Emily, rocketing forward from her frozen stance and leaping into the air to be caught by the startled man. Despite his shock, and his armful of papers and a briefcase, he dropped it all to catch her and hug her tight. “You’re home! I missed you, you’re home, I missed you, where did you go, are you staying are you home are—”

“Whoa there, Miss Muffet, settle down,” the man said, swooping her in a circle before putting her down beside his spilled papers. “Yes, I’m home. We’ll talk more inside—and yes, I’ve missed you too. Come on, hop hop. Let’s go.”

And Emily, chattering on rapidly and without a single glance back at Spencer standing there, raced after him into the big house, the wide front door closing firmly behind them.

Spencer stood alone.

 

Curled in bed that night, Spencer stared at the empty camp mattress while his mother read to him from a book of old poetry. Normally, he’d be engrossed in the rhythm and metre; tonight, he was just worried.

“What’s Emily’s dad coming home mean for us?” he asked finally, as Diana stopped reading and just looked at him. “Are we going to have to move again?”

“No, love.” Diana leaned down and kissed his forehead, wondering just how well her sensitive, genius boy was going to handle everything awful in the world. “We’re here to stay. Michael is just home until Elizabeth is able to return from Rome, then he’ll likely be leaving again.”

“Why?” Spencer pressed. It didn’t make sense to him, not even a little. The man who’d hugged Emily _so_ tight today must love her. Why would he leave someone he loved? “They look happy…”

“What’s that thought?” Diana tapped him on the nose with the book, smiling as he giggled. “‘Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’”

Spencer closed his eyes and thought about that for a moment. “I don’t know it.”

“Tolstoy. I have some of his works here. I’ll put them aside for you. The ideas may be complex, but your comprehension is adequate enough for a rudimentary introduction.”

Spencer thought further about what he was being told. “You don’t think they’re happy.”

But the clock was ticking on, and tomorrow her boy needed to be clear-headed for school. Diana stood, checking his nightlight before tucking him in. “I don’t think anyone in such a big home with so little heart is happy,” she said finally. “And no little girl wants to be paraded about like a porcelain doll. Go to sleep, Spencer. We’re not being sent away, and Emily will still be your friend, father or no. I love you.”

“I love you too. Night, Mom.”

But, even when he finally fell asleep, Spencer’s dreams were fraught and filled with lonely houses and dolls with no purpose.

He wondered what autumn would bring.


	10. A Doll With No Purpose

School began uneventfully, and life went on. As it turned out, Diana was right. Emily remained Spencer’s friend, despite her father’s reappearance. Michael Prentiss, who was rather surprised to find that Elizabeth had reacted to his leaving by hiring a live-in governess for Emily in the form of Diana Reid—who was horrendously overqualified for the job but seemed content anyway—, proceeded to be astoundingly polite to his unexpected new employee and her son. When Emily requested that they dine together, and with his usual wry acquiesce to his daughter’s demands, he informed Diana that he would be much obliged if her and her son would meet them at six p.m. daily for dinner.

Michael Prentiss, had he been the sole raiser of the daughter he adored, would have raised a very loved but very spoiled child, albeit one without much thought given to her emotional needs rather than simply her material ones. In short, he wasn’t a very good father, although he was a very loving one. One of those did not always lead to the other, sadly.

He found that Diana was a stimulating dinner guest, realising very quickly why Elizabeth had brought her into the home. Well, partially. Surely a part time tutor would have been far more cost-effective than having Diana live there, but he assumed that Elizabeth had her reasoning behind that. Since they were hardly on speaking terms at that point in time, beyond her demand that at least one of them be there to “mediate with Emily’s teachers, Michael, you know how she can be”, he hadn’t asked.

Spencer was a strange, startling child, very silent with large eyes that flicked frantically from Emily to Michael like he expected the man to suddenly swoop down and run off with her. His constant anxiety was aggravating and the friendship him and Emily had formed seemed inexplicable, but Michael wasn’t in the habit of removing things that his daughter liked from her life, so the strange boy would have to stay—by whatever means necessary. As he ensured, multiple times, by subtly questioning Diana about her wage and whether she was satisfied, determined to as much as double it if this source of happiness seemed to be inclined to move on.

 

Diana, who wasn’t entirely sold on the man who seemed so sure that the only way he could love his daughter was through material possessions, just smiled politely and dodged every personal question he slipped her way.

But then came a question she couldn’t avoid.

“It’s Emily’s birthday next week and she tells me that Spencer’s birthday is very soon after,” Michael said over one dinner, Emily’s feet kicking loudly against the chair as she looked from one adult to the other. Spencer remained focused on his vegetables, carefully eating his peas one by one. “What would you say to a combined birthday party for the two of them?”

Spencer’s head shot up, eyes going wide. Emily’s feet kicked faster.

Diana didn’t answer immediately, trying to read her son’s reaction without making it obvious that she was watching him. A party would be overwhelming, perhaps too overwhelming—but him and Emily were exchanging loaded glances that were layered with more than a little bit of hope.

“What kind of party would they like, if we were to do so?” she carefully questioned, imagining some terribly expensive but absolutely tedious monstrosity of a birthday party, made of clothes no one could get dirty in and expensive finger foods that were too strong for children’s tastes.

Michael shrugged, looking at his daughter. “Whatever they like,” he replied. “Emily, how about you and Spencer come up with an idea and then bring it to me and I’ll make it happen?”

Emily’s smile was wide enough that Diana was sure they wouldn’t be getting any homework done for the foreseeable future.

Spencer’s was a lot smaller, and far shyer, but no less excited.

Warily, Diana agreed.

 

Their eighth birthday party was entirely unexpected, and also entirely surprising. They had eight guests, and seven of those were hares. The final one was Garett, the gardener, who was both very puzzled and very pleased by his inclusion. There was not a single other person, aside from Diana and Michael, that either of them had wanted invited.

Emily, quietly and making sure that no one but her dad could hear her in case she was disappointed—which she was—had asked if Elizabeth was coming. She was not, something that Michael was relieved about, despite his anger at his wife for going to Italy in the current political climate anyway. Their separation did not entirely rest upon his shoulders.

And the party passed in pleasant solitude, with the adults sitting under the awning together while the children fed the hares hare-appropriate treats. Emily _had_ requested a unicorn, which her father had been sadly unable to provide—although he hoped his later surprise would alleviate that disappointment. There was food and cake and a friend, which was one thing more than Spencer had ever really had before, and they both ate too much sugar and ran about far too much before presents were announced.

“This is from your mother,” Michael announced once Emily had been, with some difficultly, seated back at the table, passing a long, wrapped box to her. Mystified, Emily thanked him, opened the card and thanked him again, before finally opening the gift with painful care. Peeling each piece of tape back and folding the wrapping neatly, despite the fact that she was almost frantic to know what she’d been given.

Finally, the box was unveiled, Spencer hopping his chair closer to look at it too as he waited his turn. And, from within the box, two glass eyes stared back from a perfect porcelain face.

“Oh,” said Emily, who would never admit that she _loved_ dolls, especially ones as pretty as this. The dress was a perfect miniature, sewed delicately to the doll’s body, and every detail was thought out with care. Tiny shoes and hair she itched to be able to touch, she stared down at the box and wished she could tear it open and _play_ —but that wasn’t allowed, not until she knew what kind of doll this was.

“Oh!” said Spencer, excited. “Her name is Emily! Look, Em, she’s an Emily doll!”

“That’s right,” Michael said, tapping the tag. “And she’s very expensive, so you know what that means.”

Emily wilted. Oh. _That’s_ what kind of doll she was: the looking kind.

“She’ll look lovely with the others,” she said politely, hugging the box tight and wishing.

There was a moment of silence, Diana biting her lip until she couldn’t bite it any longer. “Aren’t you going to let her out?” she asked, ignoring Michael and focusing solely on the blatant want on Emily’s face. “She’s been in that box a long time—if I was her, I’d want to be let out. Dolls are made to be loved, after all.”

Emily looked at her dad, who looked at the doll. Elizabeth wouldn’t like it, but…

“Go ahead,” he said finally, wincing a little as the box was promptly torn open and sent flying, Emily settling back into her chair with a savage kind of contentment, the doll nestled neatly in her lap and her fingers exploring every dip and weave of the hand-stitched dress. While she was distracted, he slid another, heavier, gift from the table and held it out to Spencer. “This is from Elizabeth as well, Spencer. Happy birthday, kiddo.”

Spencer blinked. His mother had already given him his gift—a timer for his chess board, so he could play with Emily _properly_ , and he hadn’t expected more. But he took the gift anyway, anxiously following Emily’s lead and thanking Michael multiple times before opening the card and thanking him again. Finally, it was time for the wrapping paper—with just as much care as Emily had shown—and then his gift was revealed, spilling from the paper and sliding heavily onto the ground as he scrabbled to catch them. Heavy, handsome covers with titles inscribed in gold, he read the titles hungrily, then paused: _Storia d'Italia,_ in eight volumes.

“It’s in Italian?” he said, confused, before realising his error and hurriedly thanking Michael, who looked as mystified as he did.

“Ahh, Indro Montanelli,” Diana said, picking up one and scanning the cover. “I’m familiar with this work, although not from having read it myself. They’re the most popular complete history of Italy, Spencer. You’ll be absolutely spellbound by them.”

“They’re in _Italian_ ,” Spencer repeated, this time less confused and more excited. “I can learn Italian!”

“That you can.” Diana beamed at him.

Emily’s head had snapped up, bouncing a little in her chair before remembering how precious the gift in her lap was and stilling, almost trembling with the need to be gentle with her doll. “I can teach you! I can finally teach you something!”

This, she decided, was possibly the best gift of all.

And Spencer beamed happily, sure that nothing could beat this moment. For his birthday, he’d gotten _language._ That was magical.

 

But there was one more surprise in store.

In 1978, for both of them—Spencer because no one in his life had been interested before now, and Emily because no one in her life had taken the time to wonder if a little girl would like the movies—going to a movie theatre was something entirely new. So, when Michael announced that they were not only allowed to go to the theatre and watch a movie, with _popcorn_ , but that they were being allowed to go _alone,_ since they were so terribly grown up now, neither of them thought they’d be able to contain their excitement. Into the car they were packed, waving to Diana as they wanted, giddy with what was to come. Emily was already wondering how much popcorn she could eat. Spencer was thinking about the history of film.

“What movie are we going to see?” Emily asked her dad, still hugging the doll she’d been allowed to bring so long as she _remained_ gentle with it.

“ _Watership Down_ ,” Michael said, so sure that he’d chosen a faultless movie for his two hare-loving charges. After all, rabbits were basically hares and this was animated, so it was perfect for the children. “You’ll love it, I promise. It has bunnies.”

“Oh,” said Spencer, brightening even more. “I love leporids! Pity it’s probably not very educational…”

Emily just groaned. Looked like her first movie experience was going to have a _lot_ less blood and gore than she’d hoped.

They were both so terribly wrong.


	11. Discomfort Shared is Discomfort Doubled

The school year continued, mostly, without event. Holidays came and went and the Sometimes homes settled into a kind of permanence, Emily and Spencer both becoming sure that they would simply remain there until some unforeseeable distant future when they became ‘grown’, which seemed unlikely and not really relevant to their day to day lives. These instead consisted of waking up early enough that they could both check the hares before they got ready for school—behaviour which they insisted upon, after discovering just how warlike and dangerous a leporid’s life could be when watching _Watership Down_ —, going to school separately, spending the day separately, returning home separately, and then, upon coming home, spending every minute from they hit the ground running right up until the descent of the sun playing together. Michael had been convinced by Diana that after-school classes were hardly a necessity if Emily kept her grades up, therefore giving them some more time to play, at the expense of her weekends. Emily, after several occurrences of her grades slipping, learned very quickly that if she wanted to play, it was best to slip Spencer her homework first. Spencer hardly minded, since the concept of grades ever being below ‘top’ was alien to him.

So life was good for them, in the year that they were eight, in every way but two.

Firstly, they both missed someone. Neither wanted to talk about it, but the hurt was always there. Spencer ate dinner in the big house at night and watched enviously as Emily commanded effortlessly all of her doting father’s attention. Emily, in turn, sat in lessons with Diana and silently seethed over the ease with which Spencer could request to sit upon her lap or be read to or hugged, a motherly care that Emily had never been afforded.

Secondly, school was only bearable because of the simple fact that every night, without fault, it ended. Emily hated it entirely, from the classes to the teachers to the friends she made that didn’t last, constantly flitting from group to group and making shallow connections that she shed just as easily as she gained them. No friend was Spencer, no person was interesting enough to be. They were all boring, utterly, utterly boring, and she spent the year in a waiting kind of loneliness, quick to anger and always bored, solving both of these things by disrupting the class or teasing the other girls to _prove_ how boring they were, especially after the incident that she refused to tell anyone at home about. Spencer just hated being alone. Everyone in his class was older than he was, the teacher was too awed by his intelligence to realise that he was still only _eight_ , and all the kids his age had decided he was too shy and weird to hang out with. He sat in the library and read every book, waiting for the bell to send him home to Emily.

Luckily, that bell always came.

 

That night, he found Emily trying to feed paper to Balthy. Balthy, who’d been glum ever since her babies had grown up and started filtering away, was refusing to eat the paper, instead nibbling on Emily’s fingers and making her giggle.

“What are you doing?” Spencer asked, readjusting his chess board under his arm as he joined them under the tree. It was a wet, cold spring day, the winter thaw coming and leaving the trees barely ready to turn green once more. Despite their heavy coats, both kids were still shivering. “Hares don’t eat paper.”

“Someone has to eat it,” Emily said, shredding the paper further. Spencer caught a glimpse of the word ‘disciplinary’ and guessed, correctly, that Emily had probably gotten in trouble at school again and was taking advantage of the fact that Michael rarely fielded phone calls from her teachers in order to hide the evidence. “I’ll do it if I have to.”

“You know, not getting in trouble is easier than eating the evidence of that trouble.” Spencer nodded wisely, ignoring Emily’s eyeroll at his naivety. “Do you have any homework?”

“Tons.” Emily took her book out of her bag and tossed it at him, watching him page through and frown at her notes, most of which consisted of drawings of badgers, her latest interest. “I’m going to _fail.”_

“You’re perfectly capable of doing the work. You just need to apply—”

Emily snorted so loudly that Balthy jumped at the sound, taking off into the trees and vanishing from sight. Standing and brushing her hands on her pants, shreds of letter blowing across the wet grass, Emily snapped, “You sound like a teacher,” and tried not to let _too_ much of her crankiness edge into her voice.

“Sorry.” They stood there for a moment, both shivering still, until Spencer thought of something that they _could_ do, since staying outside was probably out of the question. “Want to come help turn my house into a pillow fort? Mom said I could, so long as I was careful not to invite danger and disorder into the premises, which I think means make too much of a mess.”

The answer was obviously _yes_.

 

Diana returned home from a rather concerning phone call with Elizabeth to find that her home was her home no longer, but now the domain of two badgers, as they declared themselves to be, who were claiming sovereignty over her living room, staircase, and her son’s bedroom. Sidling past a complicated series of sheets and blankets engineered into tunnels and coves all through the hall, Diana admired for a moment the ingenuity of the craftwork put into the badger warren before crouching down and peering into the largest of the gaps underneath to find her two badgers. They were sitting in a veritable sea of papers and books, both looking out innocently at her with clothes pins on their shirts and Emily still in her school uniform.

“You’re going to get your skirt dusty,” Diana warned her first.

“Badgers don’t care about dust, we only care about worms.”

“And colonisation of the rabbits’ native homelands,” Spencer declared, sitting upright and revealing that he was wearing Diana’s bathrobe as some kind of cape. “We’re at the beginning of a race war, motivated by a lack of resources—”

“Worms,” Emily explained. “And holes.”

“Yeah, those, back in our homelands. The rabbits have all the worms and holes, and, also, we don’t like their ears. And they have a thriving spice trade—what?”

Diana stared at them.

“Spencer’s reading a book,” Emily finally explained, looking bored with proceedings. “It’s _not_ about badgers. My book is though.” It was clear which book she was sure was better, purely by whether it contained badgers or not. Both books were held up proudly. Emily, who’d begun the year sure that reading outside of school was an unnecessarily tedious undertaking, had taken to the hobby like a duck to water once Diana had managed to find books that catered more to her than the ones she currently owned. Todays was _The Wind in the Willows,_ which Diana assumed was where the badgers had been inspired from.

Spencer’s was _Burmese Days_ , and Diana made a mental note to find him some wider reading on the history of British Imperialism before he ended up radicalised at the age of eight. She didn’t remove the book however—if he was old enough to pick up George Orwell on his own and read it by choice, he was old enough to come to her about any worries he had about it. Or, alternatively, he was old enough to re-enact nineteenth century colonisation practises while pretending to be a badger.

“Not hares?” was all she asked.

“We tried that,” Spencer replied, looking contrite. “Hopping in the fort was a _mistake_.”

“Hopping down the _stairs_ was a mistake,” Emily grumbled, rubbing her elbow where a nasty red graze could be seen.

“Well, imperialistic badgers must have worked up an appetite,” Diana finally stated, standing and wincing as her knees and almost permanent headache both complained about the action. Her medication wasn’t working correctly anymore, leaving her tired and nervous, worrying that they wouldn’t find an alternative soon enough before more apparent symptoms showed up. “How about a pre-dinner snack?”

“Worms?” two voices chorused from inside the fort, both hopeful.

Diana winced. “Perhaps, if they’re in this season. We may be unlucky and have to settle for potato chips—also a staple of our friends’, the Mustelidae, diet.”

From the kitchen, she could hear them chattering in both English and Italian—Emily’s fluent, Spencer’s slow and careful—as they planned their assault on the hapless rabbits. Diana listened carefully, recognition sparking as Emily rattled off a list of ‘targets for annexing’, which she seemed to think involved a lot of bombs and very little diplomacy.

“Ah,” said Diana, recognising the names and realising that there might be a bigger problem here than Emily’s easy acceptance of nuclear warfare.

 

That night at dinner, Diana sent both children to wash their hands—not falsely, both were grimy from a long afternoon of badgering—and mentioned to Michael: “I believe Emily is having trouble with her peers.”

“Hmm?” He looked up from his paper, frowning. “Nonsense. Last time I spoke to her teachers, they said she was getting along finely with her friends. Lots of friends, very friendly. She’d have said if she was unhappy.”

“Today while they were playing, Emily was using the names of the girls at school as, ah, representations of the ‘villains’ of their pretend,” Diana said carefully, skirting around the details of their game. “There’s resentment there that I find concerning. Perhaps a call to her teacher might be in order?”

Michael frowned, looking around as Emily and Spencer bounded in, having a quick but ferocious battle over who got in the door first that used a lot of elbows and very few ‘pleases’. “Emily,” he said firmly, Emily freezing in place and going pale. Spencer immediately looked at his shoes, his reddening ears and the hands that snapped up to nervously fumble together immediate and clear signs of a guilty conscience. “Are you having trouble with your girlfriends at school?”

Emily stared. “I don’t have friends at school,” she said finally, scowling dangerously. It was a show of temper Diana hadn’t seen for a while, and she tensed and waited to see if Michael would provoke it or dissuade her from giving into it. “They’re all boring and stupid and I hate them.”

Spencer shrunk down more, eyes flicking up to meet Diana’s before darting away. Michael, focused on his daughter’s stormy expression, noticed none of this.

“Nonsense, they’re lovely girls. You go to their birthday parties all the time, you’re very popular. Why would you go to the parties of girls you hate?”

Emily didn’t answer, just bit at her lip and began to tremble. Despite her reddening eyes and pale face, she wasn’t about to cry—it was raw anger and she struggled to push it down, aware that Diana was watching and that they’d talked about this, about being mad for no good reason. She recited in her head what she’d been told: breathe, step back, think. What her mom called compartmentalising, which Emily didn’t really understand but thought mostly meant shoving the angry bits of her away where they didn’t show or feel.

Easier said than done.

“Spencer, do you know anything about this?” Michael asked. Diana frowned, tensing at the direct query aimed at her son.

But Spencer just stared at his shoes and shook his head, saying nothing.

“We’re going to talk later about this.” This was directed at Emily once more, and Diana relaxed, nodding at Spencer to come sit next to her, which he did with obscene haste, burrowing into her side and hiding his sniffling. Emily stood alone, her expression no longer angry but deceptively blank, despite her red-rimmed eyes. “I don’t understand why you’re being like this when they’re such nice girls, with such lovely families.”

Diana winced. Spencer froze.

And Emily said in a quiet, low voice, “I hate them and I hate their families and I hate _you_. You don’t even care that they hate me back, you just want me to like them because their families are _important—_ well, they won’t ever like me because I made sure they wouldn’t so you can’t make them!”

And, with that, she turned and stormed out, refusing to return and eat.

“Mom?” Spencer murmured, after Michael had followed his daughter to either console her or scold her, whichever took his fancy at the time—Diana doubted either option would lead to him understanding the tumultuous drama of being an eight-year-old girl, with all the petty miseries that came of it. “Emily told me not to tell, but she’s in trouble at school for being mean to the others.” He looked immensely troubled by this, as he would, Diana realised. A victim of bullying himself in the past, his confusion about his friend suddenly being the bully was vast. “I told her to stop being mean to them and she said I didn’t get it, she had to be…”

“Why?” Diana queried, concerned.

“I don’t know.” Spencer stared at Emily’s abandoned plate, a clock ticking somewhere distantly and all their meals untouched. “She said it was the only way to be sure what they felt about her was real. I don’t know what that _means_.”

Diana, looking around at the big house they were in with no candid photos on the walls, only the most carefully selected images of the lives within, rather thought that she understood perfectly. After all, Emily had something this year she hadn’t all those years prior—and it took only a single real friendship to expose false ones. And for a girl like Emily, surrounded by other girls with parents just like hers, Diana didn’t doubt that Emily had only just crashed up against that grim reality and decided that hatred was better than deceptiveness when it came to her peers.

“I think, my boy,” she said finally, Spencer looking up at her hopefully, “I’m going to need you to do something for your friend, before her rather radical plan backfires on her.”

And Spencer with a fierceness he rarely showed, said, “Anything.”

 

That night, Emily—who had been curled up under her covers crying until her head hurt and her nose hurt too and she felt sick from not having enough of the hot, damp air under there to breathe—heard a noise at her door. A soft whisper of a noise.

“Daddy?” she asked, her voice thick and gross, mouth and nose wet. But the room was dark, the only light moonlight from the still-open curtains. Still in her dusty-kneed school uniform, she slid out of bed and padded over to the door, opening it. No one was in the hall.

But, when she pushed it closed again, she looked down and found an envelope against her toes.


	12. The Letter

Dearest Blackbird (in case this letter falls into the wrong hands),

I’m writing this letter because I think you need to read it. Mom says the best way to have our thoughts heard is to write them down, that way they’re able to be read over and over again until an understanding is gained. When I’m upset or angry, she makes me write down why in a letter, so that she can read it and understand it and then help me. And I can’t write a letter to help you, even though I know school upsets you, because I don’t know what you think and therefore can’t put it down on paper form.

Well, I kind of know what you think. I know a bit. Best friends do know some stuff about each other, right? Like, I know that your favourites colours change a lot but they’re always really bright and I know that your favourite toy is the doll you got last birthday, even though you’re not really allowed to play with it how you like, and I know that being alone hurts, but it hurts more if you don’t choose to be. I know that because I’m alone a lot and I wish I wasn’t. Sometimes when the kids at school are horrible, I imagine that one day I do something amazing that wows them all, like build a Penrose Triangle—something superbly impossible—and they’re all so impressed that they demand to immediately be my friend. And I imagine that when they do that, I tell them no. That I don’t need them and I’m happy being alone, because they didn’t like me when I was a nobody and that I refuse to like them when I’m a someone. It’s a mean dream, but a good one, and I think you understand that, because it’s why you’re so mean to the girls at school. Or, partially.

You’re just getting in first—if you’re mean to them, when they’re inevitably mean to you, it won’t hurt as much, right? Because sometimes when we’re playing you get upset if you think I’m faking having fun just to please you. I guess lots of people have faked being things around you, not just me when you’re making me be a corpse again. It’s the birthday parties, right? They’re like the doll. They’re something fun that your parents give you, but when you get there or you open the box, they’re only fun on the outside. You can’t play with them properly or how you’re supposed to. You have to be too gentle or careful and maybe you’re only there because dolls are something little girls should have and parties with people you don’t actually like are only so that their parents can see what a good girl you are and think better of your parents. I don’t understand that. I don’t. I thought the parties was just because maybe they bullied you first at one and then you got MAD, but then Mom told me that and I don’t GET it. If it’s fake, why care? And I guess now I’m kind of angry, because if it’s fake it DOESN’T MATTER. But do you know what does matter?

Last week a girl pushed me over because she said I looked better with dirt on my face, to remind me I’m not as smart as I think I am. Two days after that, they stole books from my locker and threw them into the water fountain. I get called names and pushed over all the time and none of it bothered me really, because those people don’t matter to me. But then they worked out that I wasn’t bothered and now when I walk into a room at school, no one looks at me. No one sees me. I’m no one. I’m the nobody no one ever thinks about, except you, but then you come home with letters about pushing girls over or cutting their hair and I think maybe you’re like them. Nobodies don’t matter to you. Nobodies like me.

You sound proud when you talk about how mean you are to them, because it makes them hate you and notice you which I guess you think is better than them pretending to like you, but all it does is remind me that we’re different. You think them being fake is more important than you being mean. I’d rather have a friend who knows that sometimes people pretend and sometimes people are nobodies and sometimes people are wrong, but none of that is a reason to hurt them. That matters to me.

I just want you to know that even though you’re a someone and you always have been, and I’m a nobody and probably will always be, that’s never changed how much I like you. I always want to be your friend, but I guess it would be easier to be your friend if sometimes you didn’t remind me of the people who hurt me. I know you’re not her, but brains are stupid. And even a good reason isn’t enough of a reason to be a bully—they thought they had good reasons too. All good reasons are bad reasons in the eyes of their victims.

 

I still love you though. Please don’t get mad at me for this letter, I just want to help.

Love, your best friend (if you still want to be), Dr. Joseph Bell. 1979.


	13. Future Ways

The school year ended with two very different meetings that were very important in very small ways. And neither Spencer, nor Emily, were present for either of them.

 

The first was in privacy, in the bright, clean third grade room of Emily’s private school. The walls were decorated with every assortment of work possible, paintings and stories and pictures made of varying types of craft items. One wall was entirely lined with child-sized bookshelves, overflowing with books and puzzles. A tank and two empty pet cages sat beside them. The wall that wasn’t devoted to books had maps of every country, flags of the world, and a poster with assorted animals. The teacher, Michael Prentiss thought, was the kind of teacher one found in a school where the tuition was high enough that the gatekeeping was implicit. Young and bright, top of her class in college he was sure. She’d been headhunted because of her exceptional abilities, and he felt a kind of ease at their choice to place Emily here when he looked down at the lengthy folder she’d compiled of his daughter’s work.

“She’s fantastic, isn’t she?” he began, sure this belief would be confirmed.

The teacher hesitated, bright smile slipping just a little. “She is very confident,” she said carefully, looking down at the folder and steadying herself. “But there’s a reason we asked that Emily not be here for this assessment, Mr. Prentiss. We need to talk about her behaviour.”

 

The second was in a smaller room with many more people, the teachers doing the end-of-year parent-teacher interviews in groups to move them through quicker. The man sitting across from Diana was harried but still smiled and greeted her politely, his tie crooked and sauce on his shirt. The room they were in was a mesh of two grades, the bright third grader classrooms she’d passed on the way here nothing like this tired, rather scuffed room with a bank of dented lockers and all the posters on the walls starting to look at bit thin at the edges. Diana took a seat, spotting immediately the desk her son sat at and noting with a pang that his feet would almost certainly dangle from the much-taller-than-the-third-grade chairs.

“Well, what can I say?” Mr. Elliot said cheerfully, paging fast through a folder that was much thinner than the one Michael Prentiss was looking through—but still far thicker than the others in that very same room. “Spencer is exceptional, which we know already or he wouldn’t be in with my kids. Honestly, Mrs. Reid—or is it Doctor? Sorry, I should know that—that’s partly why I asked you in here without him today. We really need to talk about whether this school is right for him.”

 

The children, with very little idea that their futures were being decided, were at home arguing over the likelihood of them being allowed to camp alone by the lake. Spencer was sure they would be. Emily was sure they wouldn’t, and that forgiveness was better than permission and, honestly, no one would notice if they just _went_. When Spencer looked a bit disturbed by that idea, she quickly adjusted to, “Well we can tell your mom, but not my _dad_ —he’ll never let me,” because she still hadn’t forgotten Spencer’s letter and was a little worried she was being like Those Kids again.

They hadn’t really talked about it yet, because Spencer was scared that she was mad at him and Emily was horrified to realise how terrible she’d been.

 

“I’m not entirely sure if you’re aware,” Miss Gabriel was saying carefully, having sent many letters home and suspecting that none of them had actually made it there—not even the ones she’d mailed carefully—, “but we did have some problems with Emily and the other girls earlier in the term.”

“Problems?”

“Small incidents of harassment, some name-calling. It did appear to be unprovoked, but—”

Michael was frowning, his hand stalled on a story about her weekend that Emily had written that appeared to be half in Italian and mostly about whale hunting in the Netherlands, somehow. “Emily was being bullied? Why wasn’t I informed?”

Miss Gabriel winced, just a little. This was always the worst part. “Actually, from what I’ve managed to ascertain— _after_ the fact, mind you, I was never sure before—Emily was the one inciting every incident that I could tell. The behaviour came on quite suddenly. She seemed fine with the other students, if a bit of a floater, but then we had a series of presentations by the students—see, there—and after a small comment made during Emily’s, well, she seemed determine to act out because of it.”

Michael had turned to the write-up Emily had made for said presentation on ‘Our Favourite Persons’. Hers, he was startled to see, was about _Spencer_ —and that had never come up at home, he was sure, not even with Spencer himself.

_Spencer is my best friend and the smartest person ever in the world, probably even smarter than the man who invented the world. He wears clothes that are Odd but I really like and he is my favourite person because he always knows things I don’t and because he’s a good adventurer and always listens really well. If I could be anyone else I wish I could be him because he smiles all the time and laughs at things and also he’s really good with Hares._

“I think a few students teased her for her presentation, but the one who made a sharp comment about Spencer himself, Lucy, she got the worst of Emily’s following behaviour.”

Michael stared at the report, still a little confused why his daughter’s favourite person in the world was a weird eight-year-old in second-hand sweater-vests. “Is she still being cruel to the other students?” he asked, heart sinking as he remembered her furious tirade not so long ago, the one he’d brushed off as being mostly unimportant, just her sharp temper getting the better of her.

“Actually, no. Very suddenly, she came into class early one morning and apologised to all the girls she’d picked on—she was very upset, almost tearful. Since then, I haven’t heard a peep out of her. I’m concerned—she’s not really engaging with anyone anymore. I did think some of the girls were taking that as a reason to continue the harassment, but they mostly seem to be avoiding her. I was wondering if something at home had changed?”

Michael shook his head, no. “Maybe it was the talking to I gave her about her temper,” he decided, incorrectly. “Well, if the bullying has stopped, there’s nothing to be concerned about, is there?”

The teacher smiled tersely, unfolding another piece of paper, revealing Emily’s report card.

“Just a moment more, please.”

 

At the other meeting, things weren’t going well either.

“I just don’t think _here_ is a good fit for him.” Mr. Elliot looked around the room, eyes lingering on the tired posters and the lockers with two names to every one cubby. Overcrowded and underfunded, they barely had enough time for the students with _average_ needs, let alone… well, Spencer.

Diana stared at the pamphlet she’d been giving, something cold sinking deep. She knew Spencer was special, the most special person she’d ever met. No matter what William said about him, she knew. A mother always knew.

But high school before he even turned nine?

He was… she looked around, at the other students there, students who were only a few grades older than him. Even beside them, he was _small._ Small and thin and shy and fragile, and special wouldn’t protect him from the jealous and the afraid.

“I can’t afford this school,” she said flatly. If she’d kept her tenured position at the college, she could… but, if she’d kept her tenured position, she’d still be in Vegas losing her mind instead of out here where she could focus on her treatment and her son and not William’s ever-widening spiral of disconnection from the stark reality of their situation.

“A scholarship, perhaps? They do have some open, although mostly for rural students—exceptions could be made, if we speak to the right people. Someone like Spencer, he needs the best.” He smiled thinly, letting the rest of that sentence speak for himself: he wasn’t the best. This school wasn’t the best—Spencer needed to be challenged, not coasted through.

“But he’s so _young_.” The fear was tight and growing tighter; fear of change, fear of her son growing up, fear of his removal from her life. If she couldn’t give him what he needed… maybe William could… “The prevailing feature of the aged is to fear the young—teenagers around a nine-year-old? I know he’s picked on, I’ve spoken to you many times about it. I can’t imagine that would change with teenagers surrounding him!”

But there really didn’t seem to be much choice.

 

Their futures were decided.

“We’re going to see how she goes next year, but if this level of emotional immaturity keeps up, along with her detachment from her schoolwork and peers, perhaps it would be better if Emily repeated a grade.”

“Sorry, Dr. Reid—but we really can’t accommodate Spencer further. If he stays, we’ll only be teaching him what he already knows, and he deserves better. I really must advocate you think about letting him move up next year.”

 

Dinner was a quiet affair that night. Spencer was still in shock about the choice Diana had given him— _high school_ , during the next school year? That was barely four months away! Where would he go? Would there be _teenagers_ there?

Emily was silent and miserable, both from the grounding she’d gotten when her report card had been dropped in front of her and shown to be across the board failing grades and from the snippets of conversation she’d heard from Spencer and his mom. Her dad had already informed her of the day’s consequences: she was grounded, no playing outside, nothing but studying and extra lessons and now lessons on _manners_ , like she was two. And Spencer was going to high school, with everyone _cool_. He was going to be like the kids on TV, and she was probably going to get stuck with kids even younger than her if she didn’t do better. How was _that_ fair? Being nine was going to suck…

But there was one more blow to fall.

“Emily?” her dad asked suddenly, as she was finishing her plate and dolefully resigning herself to being sent straight to bed without being allowed outside to say goodnight to Balthy. “I’ve called your mother to tell her what you’ve been up to.”

That was never good. Emily slumped, expecting to be told that she was to report to the phone in order to be—

“She’s coming home next month, and she is _not_ happy with you. You’ve disappointed all of us with your behaviour.”

Oh.

Uh oh.


	14. Trouble in the Big House

There was a lot of fighting going on in the big house currently, and Emily knew that it was all her fault. Her fault, and the two rows of her work laid out on her mom’s desk. Emily had been guiltily pulled up in front of those two rows, Elizabeth asking for an explanation of what she’d found. The left side was Emily’s work with Diana, all written out neatly in Emily’s careful, precise handwriting, all marked accordingly with glowing reports of how well she was doing. On the right side was her schoolwork. It was not marked with anything near ‘glowing’, and half of it was in a sharp, scratchy handwriting that most definitely wasn’t hers.

Oops.

Emily had made mental note of that for next year: have Spencer dictate the answers to her.

That was her plan anyway. She could fix this, she was sure, —improving her schoolwork and stopping the fighting, with Spencer’s help of course—but that wasn’t quite how it turned out in the end…

 

They were eavesdropping. The fighting was happening in her father’s office, and she and Spencer were sitting under the windowsill, huddled tight together with their heads tipped up towards the open window above. It wasn’t going well. In fact, it was going the very opposite of well, which was _terribly_ , and it was all Emily’s fault.

“What is the point of paying so much for a tutor if her grades are still this sporadic?” Michael was saying furiously. “It’s a waste of money—we’d be better off ensuring that she receives a steadier education than she has so far. No more dragging her to every country imaginable—she needs a steady school with no more change. That’s the only way we’re going to get her to settle down.”

“It always comes to that with you, doesn’t it? Put her in boarding school and there’ll be nothing left to worry about, she’ll flourish there—you’re just so sure of this.” Elizabeth was just as mad. Emily huddled closer to Spencer, shivering at the mention of the dreaded ‘boarding school’. “Look at this, Michael. Use your head for once—her work with Diana is _exemplary._ The trouble isn’t with her upbringing, it’s with the school.”

“What does sporadic mean?” Emily whispered to Spencer.

“Not regular,” he replied. “Unpredictable?”

Emily thought about that for a moment.

Not good, she decided. Her grades were not good. Which meant _she_ was not good. And that never boded well…

“You’re hardly here. What does it matter if she goes to boarding school? You’re hardly one to miss her—”

“Don’t you dare!” Elizabeth’s voice was a hiss and Emily looked at Spencer, her eyes wide. His were wide too—his own parents had never fought with such anger aimed at each other. Something else that he didn’t know was present when his parents had fought, something he wouldn’t be old enough to recognise for some time yet: frantic, absolute resignation. “Don’t you _dare_ imply that I leave my daughter behind because I want to. Should I have taken her to Italy? There have been more terrorist attacks in Rome this year than any other—they’re calling it the Years of Lead, Michael—and you’d have me take our eight-year-old daughter into that?”

“You shouldn’t have been there at all… after Moro’s death, you should have come home. But you just don’t care, do you? The job always comes first.”

“I’m hardly—”

“They’re killing diplomats, Liz—”

There was a terrible silence, as Emily’s father choked off the pet-name and fell quiet. Emily wiggled closer to Spencer, trying not to show how upset she was. Spencer, because he was very, very good at hiding when he was sad, saw it anyway and tucked a thin arm around her shoulder. He wanted to leave; he knew they had to stay. Boarding school would mean the end of them—they needed to know if that was coming. The end of Balthy and the Sometimes houses and the lake with the dragon mountain and they hadn’t even seen the unicorns yet…

He took a deep breath and firmed his shoulders, refusing to be sad. Emily needed him strong right now, just like he’d always wished someone would be there for him when his own parents had fought.

Finally, Elizabeth spoke, and there was no anger left in her voice anymore, just exhaustion. “Tell me one thing Michael, one thing and then we’ll talk about her schools.”

“What?” He sounded tired too. Emily huffed a damp breath against Spencer’s arm, twisting her head up to try and avoid dripping on his coat.

“Are you so insistent upon boarding school because if we send her away, you have no reason to stay? Is that it?”

Emily gasped.  The sound was covered by Michael’s sharp “No!” that they could all tell was a lie.

Silence.

“I don’t think we should listen anymore,” Spencer whispered quietly, because he could sense that they were moving beyond the kinds of things kids were supposed to know. It wouldn’t be good for them to stay—it would be as terrible as the time he’d eavesdropped on his own parents and learned that his mom was sick and only ever going to get sicker, and that his dad wanted to leave rather than deal with it. It was as bad as knowing that his dad thought he was weird too, because William would have never said it to Spencer’s face, but Spencer had heard it anyway, through the thin gap under a door that didn’t care if his feelings were hurt irreparably. “Emily, let’s go.”

Emily shook her head, determined to be hurt.

“I gave you the house to yourself, or there’s the property in DC. Either is free to you to use if I’m so terrible for you to be around.” Elizabeth’s voice was bitter, so horribly bitter. The kind of bitter that only ever really came after the exhaustion long after a heartbreak, when the pain had faded and left nothing but numb scar tissue, healed too tightly to let any of the bitterness out. “All I asked was that you remained here for the daughter you keep insisting that you love so much, or would you rather I took her to Italy—”

“Boarding school would be safer—”

“—or would you rather she was _alone_. I don’t care what your reasoning for wanting to leave so badly is—I assume that _woman_ is involved somehow, and don’t think I haven’t noticed the money missing from our accounts—and quite frankly, she’s welcome to you. But don’t use Emily as some kind of pawn to get what you want, you feckless, arrogant _child_. Although, I suppose it’s unfair to call you a child—even a child knows adultery is a sin, or throwing out one family in favour of another—”

“Is that why you moved that woman in here?” Michael’s voice was cool now, and Spencer frowned a little. That woman? Was he talking about Spencer’s mom? Was that the same ‘that woman’ that Elizabeth had mentioned? How many women _were_ there… “The jilted wives’ club, is that what this is? She’s far too overqualified to be a simple tutor, and if she was just a tutor you’d have fired her when Emily continued failing. Does she remind you that you’re not the only woman in the world who can’t please her—”

The noise that followed was unfamiliar to both the children, but loud and sharp enough that they both reacted instinctively anyway—Emily faster on her feet than Spencer and with a head-start because he hadn’t expected her to take off.

And he certainly wasn’t expecting her to run where she did, with him hot on her heels calling out for her to _slow down, wait for me!_

Diana was having a good day, despite the tension crowding the Big House. She hadn’t had much of a chance to speak with Elizabeth about their plans for the following school year, in order to avoid the dire tragedy of Emily repeating a grade, but she had a plan: she simply had to take advantage of both of her wayward charges’ tendencies to mimic the other. Perhaps a year of home-schooling for Spencer would both put off the moment she had to watch him walk alone into a high school, while also allowing her to utilise his hunger for learning in order to catch Emily up—it would be good for them both, she surmised.

Those thoughts lasted right up until the front door slammed open and Emily herself flew in through it. Diana was reminded very vividly of the description Spencer had given her of the first time he’d met the barely tame little wildcat: her hair was flying free with her dark eyes wide and endless on a pale, thin face that was every bit the malevolent elf from every dark fantasy. Diana took one look at the way Emily paused on the threshold, torn between flight or fight, and knew why some poets had written of their children being changelings. There was a terrible magic around a scorned child, and this girl in her living room had definitely been scorned.

The otherworldly quiet lasted all for ten seconds as Emily caught up with herself and realised she’d done something that she’d never done before, or at least not since she was very small: she’d run to an adult for help, and now she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t tell Diana what had happened—Diana wouldn’t help, she _wouldn’t_ , she’d just make it worse—

But, she might?

Emily then did something else she hadn’t done for a long time: she trusted that adult.

“Don’t let them send me away,” she wailed, giving in fully to the need to be a child and flinging herself bolding into the circle of books and papers around where Diana was kneeling on the rug. Diana caught her, stunned, suddenly finding herself with an armful of over-heated, frantically sobbing child that was unlike her son in all the strangest ways. There was a lot more hair being shoved into her face as Emily burrowed in close, for one thing, and Emily was both heavier and softer than Spencer was, without as many of his bony angles. Still bony, that was for sure, and Diana winced as a knee dug into her thigh, but nowhere near as decidedly deadly.

“Hey, hey, shh,” Diana soothed, recognising quickly that there was no sense in asking for details while the girl was this distraught. Instead, she just did what she did for her son and held Emily close, rocking her a little along with the sobs. More thumping feet announced Spencer’s arrival, skidding through the open front door, slamming into the living room doorframe with a muffled yelp, and then staring openly at them as he rubbed his knee, sheer panic crossing his face in at least seven different variations as he recognised that Emily was crying. Actual crying, Diana realised, not the crying for attention or persuasion that she sometimes attempted, and that Spencer was very familiar with by now. “Come on, you’re going to make yourself sick, getting so worked up. No one is getting sent away.”

“I am,” came the muffled voice from Diana’s shirt. “I’m getting sent away because I _failed_.”

Diana was quiet for a moment, watching Spencer bounce from one foot to the other anxiously. She didn’t know what had happened—and likely wouldn’t until both children were calm, because she could see barely restrained panic in Spencer’s bearing too—but that wasn’t important right now.

“Why?” she asked firmly. Emily, who’d been sniffling and hiccupping up a storm in the burrow she’d made in Diana’s arms, went still.

“Why what?” she asked, emerging covering in snot with her face all red and her lip bitten, dark hair plastered to her sweaty skin.

Pulling threads of hair gently away from her eyes and smoothing it back, Diana met her gaze evenly and repeated her question. “Why did you fail?”

Emily blinked, sitting up and narrowing her eyes. “I don’t know,” she tried at first, hiccupping out both words as her chest began to slow from its frantic heaving. Distracted from her agonies. “I don’t know? I don’t… understand that question.”

Spencer had vanished, reappearing with a wet face cloth and holding it out, just like what Diana did for him. She took it after thanking him, wiping the sticky girl down and scolding her when she wiggled before returning to the question she could tell was a challenge to answer—and Emily thrived on a challenge.

“Hasn’t anyone ever asked you why you do so badly at school when you’re perfectly capable?”

Emily shook her head.

Well then.

“They were talking about boarding school,” Spencer whispered, trying not to set Emily off again. Despite his care, she began to wheeze a little again, focused expression glazing over as tears bubbled up once more. “And…” He stopped, nipped at his lip, bounced on his feet again. Eyes switching everywhere but at Diana’s face, and that wasn’t a good sign. He was either struggling to comprehend something, or he was hiding it from her—or both. “Emily’s not going to go to boarding school, is she? I can teach her. She’s _smart_. It’s just hard to be smart at school. Even I have trouble sometimes.”

Emily sniffled, smiling wetly at him.

“Emily’s not going to go to boarding school,” Diana said without thinking, before wincing. She really couldn’t promise that. She really _shouldn’t_ have promised that—it wasn’t her place to intrude on the Prentiss’s lives, but she also knew that Elizabeth had never once wanted to send Emily away. “Spencer, go get your book—and _slow down_ , Crash, you only have one good knee left.”

Spencer, having been about to sprint for the book, slowed and walked away with exaggeratedly careful steps, each movement measured. Diana listened to his footsteps fading away, before turning her attention to the now-quiet Emily.

“Whatever you heard that you shouldn’t have,” she said quietly, “we can talk about it when the moment is a bit older. Time makes thoughts easier, okay? Now, get everything you’re feeling right now and put it aside, for just a little while. We’re going to read together until time has passed, and then we’ll clean up and go and talk to your mom. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Emily mumbled, her expression still sore to look at. She had the heavy-eyed, swollen-faced look of crying too much, and Diana knew she’d be asleep within the next hour for sure.

Good. It would give her time to find out what they were up against.

 

Two hours later, an Elizabeth alarmed by finding her daughter’s room empty and the halls silent of children giggling, came looking for her daughter. Diana answered her front door with a finger to her lip, leading Elizabeth up the stairs and down the hallway without making a sound, towards the soft whisper of a voice lilting.

Elizabeth peered in where Diana pointed, finding something she’d never seen before. The room was lit with the soft glow of a nightlight, two heads barely visible in a veritable pile of pillows and blankets that swallowed the bed below them. One black-haired and wild, one brown-haired and neat, despite his mop of curls. Emily was only visible from the patch of black her hair made on the pillows, curled up small with her knees to her chest and her head pillowed on Spencer. Fast asleep.

She was fast asleep, but that hadn’t stopped him determinedly continuing to read to her, a flashlight in hand and his voice husky with exhaustion, his own eyes drooping too.

“Stubbs may have en… vis-aged the skeleton inside the horse,” he was reading determinedly, stumbling over ‘envisaged’ as he struggled with the unfamiliar word on his young tongue but keeping on anyway, “but most of us do not: and we do not usually _en-vis-sage_ the downs without daylight, even though the light is not a part of the down itself as the hide is part of the horse itself. We take daylight for granted—”

A hand brushed Elizabeth’s arm, breaking the spell of the small boy reading to his sleeping friend, drawing her away from that soft-lit scene and back down the hall to where it felt colder and darker and somehow emptier, like there was something good in that room that was long out of reach of the two broken women standing there together alone.

“ _Watership Down_ is a challenging, probably very confronting book for them at their age,” Diana said quietly, so quietly that Elizabeth doubted the storyteller down the hall would be distracted from his duty. “But, they’re children who crave being challenged. Confrontation is not alien to them, no matter how young they are. Did he hit you or you him?”

The horror of that moment, juxtaposed against the frozen moment of childhood they stood by, was not lost on Elizabeth. For Diana to know, she had to have been told, and Emily hadn’t cried herself to sleep without reason since she’d learned how to say, “No.” And Elizabeth, even from just seeing that snippet of her daughter’s hair, knew she’d cried herself to sleep; she was a distant mother, likely a terrible mother—and the first to admit it, unlike Michael who thought himself rather a clever dad—but she wasn’t unobservant. Who else had made sure the kitchen had stocked enough food for secret hares, even on the very day that the secret hare had been smuggled into their home?

“I slapped him,” she answered finally, uncomfortable with the stark humanity of that answer. Everything terrible about being human, tied into three cold words. “He’s gone. Likely, he’ll be back to see Emily, when I’m not here. I tried to get him to say goodbye to Emily tonight, but I guess words stung more than the slap. He’ll appear one day with candy and expensive gifts and spoil her terribly while telling her what a cold creature I can be, driving him away, but what can you do. He’s her father, he has a right to her—likely more than me, when I’m a country away…”

And off she trailed, vividly aware that while Michael didn’t want to take Emily away and suddenly be faced with everything that parenting could be, without the assistance of staff and tutors and Elizabeth’s bank account, she also knew that the only thing he wanted less was for Elizabeth to be happy with her.

Diana was silent. Elizabeth, who’d known Diana for long enough that they knew each other’s darkest corners and still liked each other anyway, wondered if this was a breaking point for her. Diana, after all, doted on her son. Cherished him. The best that could be said for Elizabeth’s parenting was that Emily wanted materially for very little. And she knew that Diana would feel rude inserting her opinion on Elizabeth’s parenting, even as a small part of her wished that maybe she…

“Don’t send her to boarding school,” Diana said suddenly, more intent than Elizabeth had seen her in a long time. In recent times, there’d been a haze creeping into her sharp expression, a slow degradation of her focus. There was none of that now. “She’ll never forgive you—and she won’t always be eight. One day, she’ll be grown up and living life with every opportunity you’ve given her—and all she’ll have retained of being eight is meeting a friend who she loves, and you taking that friend away. I can promise you, Eliza—if you send her away, that is _all_ she’ll cling to. Your daughter is you through and through, and she doesn’t take kindly to being hurt.”

She was right.

But it was too late and they were too raw to deal with it now. All Elizabeth could promise was the truth: she wouldn’t send Emily away. God knows, the only thing Elizabeth had gotten out of her in their rushed and infrequent phone calls over the last eight months was ‘Spencer, Balthy, Spencer, Spencer, Diana’, and every variation of. At least one Prentiss could be happy.

Instead, the two old friends, both stuck firmly on the paths life had given them, walked back into the room that reminded them that childhood could be kind instead of hard. The light was still on, the moment still frozen; but the book had slipped from the lax hand holding it and Spencer’s head was tipped back against the pillow, his eyes closed and eyelids shadowed. He startled awake like a cat as Elizabeth eased Emily out from the covers, finding her a strange, unfamiliar weight to hold—when was the last time she’d picked up her daughter? Held her like this? She couldn’t answer, pulling her into her arms and wondering when she’d gotten so long and awkward to hold, drowsily burrowing tighter as she mumbled sleepy nothings at whoever was holding her. And Spencer, as he woke, grabbed for her hand in a panic, hazel eyes blinking rapidly as he tried to work out where he was and what was happening.

“Goodnight, Spencer,” Elizabeth said quietly, seeing him calm down as he realised who they were, more awake now. Diana settled next to him on the bed, watching him with something indescribably tender in her eyes. “Thank you for looking after her.”

Spencer just nodded and watched them walk from the room, already dozing off again as his mother picked up the book he’d let fall and continued from where he’d stopped.

“Cold,” Emily grumbled as they crossed the lawn. “Mommy, it’s cold.”

Elizabeth didn’t know how to answer her. Emily was barely awake—was she supposed to say something to soothe her, or to answer her as an adult would? What was the procedure here? She finally decided to say nothing, to let Emily drift off again. Let this day end kindly.

But Emily woke one last time, as Elizabeth tucked her in—another thing she couldn’t remember having done recently. Like the daylight in the passage Spencer had read from, Elizabeth was finding a lot of things that felt certain that she’d been taking for granted. Like the love of her daughter, which suddenly didn’t feel like the sunlight at all… but much more like the moon. Sporadic and always changing, likely to be swept away by rough clouds.

“Don’t let me forget,” Emily said, sounding strangely awake considering she was curled around her pillow with her eyes shut. “Spence is a better Fiver than he is a Joseph Bell… cos he’s… weird and not a… doctor…”

And she was quiet.

The day, for Emily, ended kindly there, despite the lack of moonlight.

The night, for Elizabeth, was long and cold and, in the morning, instead of sunlight there was rain.


	15. A Fine Agreement

In another world, one far colder and much more alone than this one, Spencer and Emily would have never met each other as children. They would have gone through school lonely and angry, respectively, and only really found solace in a friend well into their adult years. One would grow up isolated, walking a path that no one else walked alongside him, always the smartest person in the room which didn’t make up at all for being the strangest. The other knew how to walk the popular path alongside the sea of all the other people, but she never connected with them; she was born different but raised to be the same. Normality was everything, always.

In this one, things went very, very differently for the two children who’d found themselves together on a path somewhere between those two extremes. A path that their mothers were determined they’d walk together, because—in this world—they knew what it was like to be lonely.

 

This was a Big Talk, Spencer could tell, because they’d been called in as soon as they’d gotten home from school to sit side-by-side on the couch that no one was supposed to sit on. It was the sitting room for Important Meetings in the big house, and the white carpet was so dangerously bright under Spencer’s battered shoes that he couldn’t help but keep anxiously look down to make sure he wasn’t scuffing it. In stark comparison, Emily was battering her heels against both it and the couch, seemingly determined to make as much of a mark as possible. And, before them, on the couch opposite, sat their mothers.

The only thing that was at all calming about this talk they were about to have was that Diana was smiling. Spencer took note of that and tried to remember how to breathe normally, sure that his fear was showing itself in all the worst kinds of ways.

Emily, who was trying to appear perfectly unconcerned, was definitely concerned—and, unlike Spencer, she hadn’t noticed Diana’s small smile. This, she was sure, was it. She was going to boarding school, away from this house, away from Spencer, and—despite the fact that she wasn’t scared or worried, not at all, not even a _little—_ she kicked her heels harder to hide the fact that her hand was fumbling for his. It found it, fingers slipping together, and they hung on tight to each other as everything teetered on the edge of uncertainty.

“Elizabeth wants to ask you both something very important,” Diana began, her smile slipping a little. This was it—there was no going back on what she’d agreed to anymore, no matter how uncomfortable she was about it. Maybe it would be easier to say no if she was only doing it for her son—but she wasn’t, and so she couldn’t stop this now. Emily needed this too. So, she swallowed, gritted her teeth against the unpleasant connotations of everything they were about to offer, and continued on firmly. “We don’t need an answer today—you have all summer to think about it—but we do think you’ll both be on board.”

 

Emily’s heels kicked faster. Spencer’s hand tightened in hers. For a split second, they both thought the same thing: oh no. Spencer was going to boarding school too.

For Emily, that idea was thrilling, if horrifying. No Balthy at boarding school—but _together._ If she had to be sent away, that was the best way to do it.

For Spencer, that idea was nothing but horrifying.

 

Elizabeth noticed none of this panic, simply asking calmly and without any further hesitation, “Spencer, would you like to attend Emily’s school with her next school year?”

Silence. The children stared at her, their hands both sweaty and one of them trembling, Emily’s feet stilled. The silence lingered, far beyond a comfortable duration, and neither of the small faces on the too-clean couch shifted from expressions of blank confusion. Realising that this meeting would end there unless someone stepped in, Elizabeth continued speaking. Diana, who didn’t feel comfortable influencing this conversation any further, looked down at her hands and hoped that Spencer didn’t pick up on her hesitance.

 

Elizabeth stated exactly what she’d told Diana the night before, when she’d come to Diana’s home after the children were in bed and asked her how she would feel about sending Spencer to school with Emily.

“Just think about it, Diana,” she said then. “It’s a K-12—he can have a high school education while still being exposed to same-age peers during break periods and after-school activities. The teachers are exemplary, some of the best in the state, and they have a fantastic gifted and talented program. He’ll even have access to college curricula, if he wants it—they have so many resources for the children enrolled there. And he’ll be with Emily outside of class which, quite frankly, I think she needs just as much as he does. Half of her misbehaviour is in the playground, where the teacher can’t watch her attentively, and he’s a fantastic influence.”

“I can’t afford that,” Diana had responded then, but absolutely didn’t mention in front of the children now. “There’s absolutely no way I can afford that school, the tuition for a year alone is a sizable down-payment on a house—”

And Elizabeth had said quietly—also not said later, in front of the children— “I never asked you to pay for it.”

 

It wasn’t anything Diana was comfortable with. There was no earthly way she could ever repay her friend, not in a lifetime of trying.

But when the offer began to sink in to the two stunned children and Spencer’s eyes turned wide and hopeful and absurdly worried, like he was sure this was inches from being snatched away from him, she knew there was really no way she could have said no. Not now, when he needed his friend to stop him from being lonely and vulnerable, and not later, when maybe she wouldn’t be able to look after him anymore and needed him to have all the tools he’d need to excel without her.

“Mom, really?” he whispered, as though saying it too loud would startle the idea away. “I can really go to school with Emily?”

Emily, gleeful, bounced in her chair and half-yelled, “You’ll have to wear a tie!” Both adults shot her a look, well aware that all her volume control went out the window as soon as she was excited. “Of course he wants to come to my school! Will he be in my class? Can we sit together? Can I wear a tie too? Do we have to catch a bus? Oh, Mom, this is the _best—_ ”

“Slow down.” Elizabeth couldn’t help a small smile at how excited they both were, as Spencer began to clue into his friend’s joy and grinned along with it. “No, you won’t be in the same class for the majority of the time. I’ve already spoken to the school, along with Diana—he’ll be in the secondary school classes, with the older children, but they’ve agreed to place him with you for any classes they think he needs more age-appropriate exposure, PE, for example. And you’ll have breaks together. Does that sound agreeable to the both of you?”

Emily, with a yell that echoed, leapt from the chair and flung her arms around her mom, hugging her tight and kissing her cheek with an exuberance that stunned both of them, saying, “Thank you, Mom, this is _amazing,_ ” in the kind of voice that _meant_ it. Before they could respond to this strange show of affection, Emily had already hurtled away, dragging Spencer up by his hand and doing a strange dance of excitement around him that mostly consisted of her chanting the words, “It’s going to be great, it’s going to be great!” over and over again.

Spencer, dazed, still hadn’t answered.

 

“Spencer?” Diana asked quietly, watching Spencer pull away from his friend and come over to her. “Is this what you want?”

With far less violence than Emily had, Spencer leaned close to his mom and hugged her close, mouth twitched down in a half-smile, half-worried frown. “Mom, Emily’s school is expensive,” he whispered, like it was a secret from the others in the room. “How…”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Diana cut him off quickly. She hadn’t taken this job and moved him here so that he could continue trying to step into his father’s-soon-to-be-vacant shoes—she’d moved him here so he could be a _child_ , worried about child things, not bills and money and making sure that she was medicated. “That’s all taken care of.”

But, even as she said it, she couldn’t look Elizabeth in the eye.

 

And, finally, Spencer nodded. “Yes, please,” he said, thinking of no more bullies and no loneliness and lunchtimes with a friend he could _share_ with. “I’d really, really like that, if it’s not going to bother anyone.”

“It _won’t_ ,” Emily said with passion, looking at her mom and beaming with such happiness that Elizabeth blinked a little to see it. “I love you, Mom.”

It might have been an ‘I love you’ summoned by having been given the most astounding kind of gift, but, for Elizabeth, it was well worth the awkwardness this arrangement was creating between her and Diana. And, in the years to come, it was the one she treasured the most, and never, ever regretted.

Spencer didn’t tell his mom he loved her to thank her for this gift because, unlike Emily, he was certain that she already knew.


	16. A School Tale

Later in her life, Emily would have a small selection of photos beside her bed. One of them was this morning, in the very room they were standing in right now. Diana took the photo, unable to hide her pride in her son despite the discomfort she felt about the circumstances of this moment. Elizabeth lingered, a week late on returning to her diplomatic posting to Italy but having wanted to see her daughter and her friend off to school for their first day of fourth grade. Well, Emily’s first day of forth grade. Despite how small and young he was, Spencer was off to his first day of eighth.

And they were lined up in front of the mantle in the expansive main dining room, shoulder-to-shoulder with Spencer grinning nervously over his crooked tie and off-centred blazer, Emily bouncing beside him with her long skirt tucked into her socks at the back. There was a brief moment of Elizabeth swooping in to fix both tie and sock, then she stepped back and the two of them stilled, real smiles slipping into uncertainly frozen ones as they waited for the camera to click down.

It did.

Spencer kept a copy of that picture too, tucked into his copy of _Watership Down_ on his bookshelf. For him, it was far too precious a moment to display.

And off they went to school, together, to learn that everything was easier when they had a friend.

 

There was a line of worried moments on that first day, most of them Spencer’s. There was his mom walking him into the homeroom he’d share with the other teenagers early to meet his teacher and discuss his needs over the year. His seat, so much smaller than the rest, was by the teacher’s desk, and he was told that his locker wasn’t to be with the other students but, instead, the cupboard behind that desk.

“You’ll be the only student with a key to this room in order to access your belongings if I’m not here, Spencer,” Mr Adams told him sternly, his narrow glasses slipped down his nose as he watched Spencer carefully. “Do you understand what a responsibility that is?”

“Yes, sir,” Spencer managed, fear closing his throat and his backpack against his legs a heavy weight with all his textbooks. “I’ll be responsible, sir.”

Diana touched his shoulder, smiling at him calmly. It helped. He took a breath and felt his heartrate slow, wondering how Emily was going over her side of the campus, a wire fence separating the secondary students from the elementary.

With that established, Spencer was given his timetable and read the riot act once more by the teacher that was sterner than any he’d had before, seemingly unbothered by how young he was or his intelligence. Spencer had the feeling that, to this man, he was just another student, and wasn’t sure if that was good or not. Whether he wanted it to be that way, he’d always been treated at school as special—and it was weird to find that, apparently, he’d been taking that for granted. Weird, and a little disconcerting, as he began to worry that he was arrogant or spoiled.

But all of that fled his mind as he studied his timetable and saw that for most of the days on there, he was spending at least two hours in with a fourth-grade class for art, music, and PE— _Emily’s_ class.

Suddenly, he was a lot less scared.

 

Meeting his new classmates was an exercise in being careful not to make eye-contact with any of them. He sat at his desk and stared at his notebook as the teacher explained why he was there and stressed his age and how much trouble would fall upon the heads of any students who were found to be taking advantage of that. And the class was silent, so silent that Spencer closed his eyes and just _worried_. Everyone was looking at him, all these terrifyingly tall kids with their unfamiliar faces and loud voices, and none of their gazes felt kind.

He was wrong.

There was a rustle of movement, the sound of two chair legs thumping to the ground as a hand was thrust into the air. The owner of that hand, a boy with a cocky smile and hair that was almost as long as Emily’s, waved his hand wildly and almost knocked the glasses from the girl next to him. “I’ll be his buddy,” he announced, grabbing his backpack and jumping up. “Swap seats with me, Anna, lemme sit next to him. Hi, Tiny.”

Spencer looked up and stared at this boy, who grinned.

“Sit down, Coiro, did I tell you you could move?” The teacher sounded irate. “Honestly, with your record, I’m hardly going to hand him over to you. Are you forgetting what happening in the lab last year?”

“Aw, man, Mr, that was totally an accident. And I’ve learned from it—I can teach him what _not_ to do. Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to instil in me for all these years, with all those detentions we’ve spent together?”

There was a moment of silence, before the teacher sighed and waved Anna out of her seat. “First complaint from him and you’re out,” he warned the boy, who just grinned more as he claimed his seat and shoved his hand towards Spencer. Spencer thought about shaking it, he did, but it was just so _big_ compared to his, and he shrunk down in his chair and stared at this newcomer as the teacher moved on to discussing timetables. The boy didn’t seem to notice.

“Hi,” he said again. “I’m Ethan. Did you know your tie is crooked?”

Spencer just smiled uncertainly, with no idea that one day soon enough, they’d be very good friends.

But not quite yet.

 

There was one last worried moment for Spencer that day, and it was a short one. He stepped into the yard over the elementary side, hovering by the gate uncertainly as he stared at the sea of red and blue blazers looking for a face that he knew running towards him. For what felt like an eternity, he didn’t see her, the wire cold under his hand and his brain wondering if she’d already forgotten he was here—what if she had? What would he do? He could go to the library, although he didn’t know where that was yet, or the cafeteria, same problem. Maybe find Ethan, but the boy was just so _loud_ , Spencer shivered a little to imagine what he’d be like on his breaks…

But the worry was a short one.

“Spence!” Emily yelled, hurtling through a football game and skidding to a stop next to him. “You came! What did you think? Are there _teenagers_ in your class?”

“It’s a high school, Emily,” he said snootily, hiding his delight as he let go of the gate and fell into step beside her. Conveniently forgetting that he’d had much the same question the day he’d been told he’d be attending high school. “Of _course_ there are teenagers there.”

Emily just shrugged, already uninterested. “What do you want to do?” she asked him. After all, lunch was long and they had _all_ of it to spend together—could anything be better than that?

“Everything,” he said honestly.

And Emily, without any thought of the difficulties of that, beamed and said, “Okay!”

 

It was a throwaway comment, three months into term. They were in the art-room, Spencer very busily trying to draw an anatomically correct _Deinonychus_ while Emily, very busily, painted the back of his art smock purple and blue. Emily had her hair tied back, Spencer with paint on the left arm of his glasses, and they were being watched despite the general chaos of the fourth-grade class around them.

“Those two, are they siblings?” asked a teacher’s aide passing through on a quest for spare bottles of glue. The art teacher paused in his inventory of the storeroom, looking out and over to the now-purple-Spencer, as Emily added a green swirl to his sleeve and he continued placidly ignoring her. “I see them arrive together in that fancy car. They don’t _look_ like siblings.”

“Them? Lord, no,” the art teacher responded with a snort, glancing to a row of paintings drying on the racks behind him. Spencer and Emily’s were, of course, lined up together: Spencer’s a design for a spaceship with every part marked neatly, Emily’s a large, horned hare with jagged wings made of knives. “Spencer’s a genius. Emily is… not.” Emily, who’d heard that, paused in her painting of Spencer’s sleeve. Spencer, who had heard nothing for the last hour since he was hyper-focused on his dinosaur, leaned closer to the paper he was trying to splodge brown paint into, instead getting it on his nose. And so, only Emily heard what came next. “Honestly, maybe if she applies herself better, but at this rate I wouldn’t be shocked if we’re seeing Spencer graduating college in three years while Emily is still in here, goofing around.”

She narrowed her eyes, thinking that over.

“Em?” Spencer asked, looking up at her with his nose all brown-splattered. “What’s wrong? Why is my… did you paint my sleeve?!”

“Are you smarter than me?” she demanded of him. He blinked.

“Nooooooooo?” was the cautious final answer, drawing out the oooooo of it as he tried to work out what was happening and why he was covered in paint. “I don’t think so? I mean, I do your homework a lot, so I guess I know a lot more than you do because I learn it and you don’t, but you know stuff I don’t, so it probably balances out.”

“I’m definitely better at Italian than you are,” she concluded. He nodded along.

“And I don’t know French. Or German. Or Spanish. So, no? You’re going to fail art if you don’t paint something though, and I don’t mean me. He can’t grade me.”

Emily thought about that some more.

“Alright,” she said, pulling some paper towards her. But, even as she painted quickly, she was thinking that over—if Spencer wasn’t smarter than her, why did people think he was? What was different about them?

She decided to find out.

 

This was what she discovered.

Spencer, she found, got a lot of attention. The teachers knew him by name, probably because he was a novelty, more likely because he always did his work and in ways that made them go, “Wow!” Emily took to sneaking looks at his assignments before he handed them up, studying them carefully and trying to see what made them different to hers, besides how much older and teachery they sounded, looking for all the Wow! bits. And Emily _liked_ attention, so once she noticed how much attention he got, it started to grate on her.

In the playground, teachers would stop as they walked past and ask them both how they were, always pausing for a second on Emily like her name was slower to recall than his was. But it was Spencer they continued talking to, asking what he was reading at the moment or what he was working on or what his thoughts were on things that she didn’t quite understand. And Spencer, astoundingly, answered, talking through his nervousness and having actual conversations with them while Emily sat there and picked at her orange.

In music, they were equally bad. In PE, Emily outclassed him easily. And in art, well, they seemed evenly good, when Emily bothered to work at it. After noticing that, Emily began to work at it—their art teacher alone seemed to give out compliments equally, not focusing on Spencer’s academic merit when it came down to paintings and collages.

And it wasn’t just at school. Now that Emily was looking, she noticed it more—over dinner at night, Diana and Spencer talked a lot about his schoolwork and his homework and the things he was doing. Emily had never cared to talk about school before, so it hadn’t bothered her, but suddenly Spencer was at _her_ school, talking about teachers that she _knew_ and she wasn’t involved with. When he joined her for her tutoring now, Emily watched carefully and saw that, even though Diana paid equal attention to both their assignments and projects, it was always Spencer’s that she lingered over.

Emily, for the first time in her life, realised that Spencer was getting the attention she’d always wanted, and she’d just never noticed it before because he was getting it in ways that weren’t sneaky or loud or demanding—he was getting it by being smart. By excelling.

And Emily just… wasn’t.

That bothered her a lot.

 

It came to a head on this day, sitting in the playground and sharing a bag of potato chips when a shadow fell over them. They looked up, finding Spencer’s English and homeroom teacher pausing by their seat to smile tersely down at them.

“Very pleased with your report on _To Kill a Mockingbird,_ Spencer,” he said shortly. “Well done. Have you considered submitting it to the school newsletter?”

Spencer flushed red. “I don’t…” he mumbled, trailing off.

And Emily scowled, speaking before she thought it through. “I’ve read that book,” she lied loudly, crumping the chip packet in her hand as they both looked at her. “If Spencer doesn’t want to submit his report, I could write one just as good.”

The teacher raised both his eyebrows, watching her for a moment. He didn’t know her, this furious looking girl sitting with his most startling pupil, but he wasn’t one to dismiss someone out of hand because of their age. If he was, he wouldn’t have put his hand up to take Spencer into his class.

“Oh, could you?” he asked mildly. “Well then, how about you write one up and send it to me via Spencer by, let’s see, next Wednesday. I’ll read it over for you and—”

“And if it’s better than Spencer’s, you’ll submit it?” Emily asked quickly, something sparking up inside her. She _would_ beat him—she had to! It wasn’t fair that everyone looked at _just_ Spencer when she could do things too.

“By Wednesday,” was all the teacher said, wandering away and leaving them sitting there looking at each other.

“You’ve never read that book,” Spencer said, confused. “Are you actually going to do that?”

“I will,” said Emily firmly, and she did.


	17. New Perspectives

Spencer was worried about Emily. Ever since that day at school, she’d been acting odd. Odd like right now—they were supposed to be reclaiming the lakeside from the forces of evil tonight, they’d planned and _everything_ , but instead she was in her room with the door latched and wouldn’t answer his knocking.

So he did the only thing he could, and just kept knocking until she answered.

“What?” She looked angry and he regretted pushing, shrinking down into his shoes as she glared at him.

“We were supposed to… you know…” He waved their plan a little sadly, averting his eyes from hers and instead studying his shoes.

“Oh. I… forgot.” But she didn’t immediately launch out of the room and announce that they’d go now, even though they still had an hour until dinner. “Sorry.”

He looked up now, cheeks burning. “Are you mad at me?” It had to be asked—she _seemed_ mad.

But she wasn’t, shaking her head with her own cheeks reddening. She wasn’t mad—she was something worse.

Emily was _embarrassed._

“No, look, just.” She stopped, unable to find the words, swinging on the door until she decided: she had to tell him. He was her friend, her very best friend in the world—if she couldn’t tell him, who could she tell? “Come inside, quick—and be quiet! No one can know about this.”

“No one is here to hear anyway,” Spencer said as he followed her into her room and watched her latch the door. “Your mom is still in Rome, and my mom is asleep already. And there’s no way your cook can hear us from all the way up here.”

Emily rolled her eyes. He’d make such an _awful_ spy. Instead of telling him this, she hurried past and pulled out what she’d shoved under her pillows when he’d started knocking. It was a battered school copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird_ , and she was barely two chapters in.

“Oh, you’re actually reading it—”

“I can’t,” she admitted, closing her eyes against the shame as he fell quiet. Here it was: he _was_ smarter than her. She was dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, and he was _always_ going to be smarter than her. “I sort of understand? I like the narrator, Scout, but there’s just… I thought there’d be more birds, I guess, and less…”

“Allegory?” Spencer said. Emily stared at him, perplexed. “Sorry, yeah, I get it. It’s not an impossible book though, _Watership_ is way harder and you’re doing fine with that.”

“Yeah, because you’re reading it with me. Books are easier when you have help, but you can’t help me with this one, you _can’t—_ I have to do it on my own, to prove I’m as smart as you are so—”

Spencer tilted his head, staring at her. He didn’t really understand. Hadn’t they already worked out that Emily was as smart as he was? But she was breathing quickly, biting at her lip again with her hand coming up to her mouth as she nipped nervously at her nails.

“So what?” he asked quietly.

She breathed out, loudly, and finished what she’d started as her shoulders slumped. “So that people don’t forget me…” She stared at her wall, eyes burning and refusing to cry. “I don’t want everyone at school to stop seeing me because you’re so much better at everything.”

That, Spencer knew, was blatantly untrue. He was _awful_ at PE, and his art only got points for being accurate—it lacked the imagination that Emily was graded highly for. Plus, they were both awful at music and he wasn’t at all looking forward to language classes next term, not at all. Besides, Emily was bright and friendly, most of the time, and approachable, and he was just, well, not.

“No one is ever going to stop seeing you,” he said, meaning every word. “You’re impossible to ignore, Em.”

She sniffed, smiling weakly at him, the hated book still held tightly in one hand. And she had to write something that was as good as Spencer for it, and she couldn’t even get past the introductionary questions she’d been given.

“You know, you don’t have to read it alone.” Spencer stepped closer, taking the book from her and opening it to the page she was stuck on. “I don’t read things alone. Mom helps me. It’s nothing to do with how smart you are or aren’t—it’s teaching and learning, and we learn from others who teach us. Like how you taught me Italian. So will you let me help you?”

Emily sniffled again, wiping her nose on her sleeve, and finally said, “Please.”

 

They were sitting in the playground in their usual spot on Thursday, arguing over the merits of Spencer’s peanut-butter-and-celery-snack over Emily’s apple-without-peanut-butter—about to agree that maybe apples could be improved with the addition of peanut butter—when a shadow fell over them. They looked up to find Mr Adams there, Emily’s report in his hand. Emily froze, terror striking her. This was it.

For the first time in a long time, she’d actually tried hard at something. Now, if she failed, it wasn’t because she was messing around, it wasn’t from lack of care—it was just lack of merit.

“Have you showed your teacher this, Emily?” Adams asked. Emily didn’t even notice that he finally knew her name, she just shook her head mutely. “You should. It’s fantastic. Well done.”

With that, he handed her the report and walked away. Stunned, Emily stared at it—and at the loud ‘accepted for newsletter’ written up the top. She’d… done it?

She’d done it! Sort of. He hadn’t said whether it was better than Spencer’s, just that it was fantastic, but she was taking that as a win anyway!

And Spencer beamed proudly, because he’d known she could. “Hey, Em,” he offered shyly. “Think you can be better at me at math as well?”

Emily thought about that for a moment, digging through her bag until she found the packet of math problems she was supposed to slowly go through over the term. “How quick did it take you do get through these when you did it?” she asked him.

He answered, “Three months, although I wasn’t racing—”

She decided that she’d have it done in two.

 

Two months later, Mr Adams, Spencer’s homeroom teacher, walked into the staff room to find a small cluster of very puzzled elementary teachers looking through a pile of student work. Recognising one as being Emily’s teacher, he veered past on his way to the coffee percolator and looked over their shoulders at what they were looking at. It came as very little surprise to him when he saw the name on the front of the books— _Emily Prentiss_ in big, curly handwriting with flourishes on the Is and a rabbit sitting on the capital E.

“What’s Emily done now?” he asked. Ever since that day he’d given her back her report, she’d started appearing by his door waiting for Spencer—without a pass for being over that side of the school and very likely having snuck through the fence, but he never scolded her for it. Every time she appeared, she’d hover with something clutched in her hands, some new piece of work she wanted to show him but was too proud to admit to wanting to show off. They had a kind of practised script by now; Spencer would notice her as he gathered his stuff from his locker, the room empty of everyone but them, he’d call her in. Adams would keep chatting about new projects coming up until ‘nonchalantly’ asking, “What’s that you have there, Emily?”

And she was improving at an astounding rate from her first, already fantastic for an eight-year-old, report. She was no Spencer—but there was a keen mind there just waiting to be harnessed regardless.

“She finished an entire year worth of math in two months,” her teacher said, looking up at him and shrugging, confused. “I mean, it’s fourth grade stuff, it’s mostly base concepts and practise, but I have no idea how she did it on her own. And she asked me if she could have the list of texts we’re going over for English this year too—said she wants to read them over the upcoming break.”

“Is she cheating?” asked another, flipping through the graph book filled with more loopy handwriting. “I had her last year and she was getting her friend to do all her homework for her. Maybe she’s just gotten better at hiding that he’s doing it for her. You know, Adams’s little genius, that Spencer.”

Adams didn’t think that Emily was cheating, but he also didn’t think that they’d believe that so easily. “Oh, maybe,” he said glibly. “I can ask, but I doubt Spencer will tell me. They’re thick as thieves, those two. Why don’t you humour her? Give her the set text list, and a surprise quiz on her math work. See how she goes under pressure.”

The woman frowned, looking again at the work. “What if she aces it? What do I do then? Make her redo the work with the class?”

“I’ve got a fifth-grade math packet,” called out one of the fifth-grade teachers. “I’ll make a spare for you, let me know.”

The woman nodded some more, before looking up at Adams. “Richard,” she asked, a little shyly. He nodded at her to continue. “Uh. Um. Is it difficult? Teaching Spencer?”

“Emily’s not Spencer,” he answered, looking again at the math work because there was something in her eyes that made him feel a little off-foot. Dealing with wild teenagers, easy. Dealing with Spencer? Piece of cake, the kid just needed to be challenged without forgetting that he was a _kid_. Dealing with pretty elementary school teachers who smiled at him like that? He’d rather deal with Emily’s book report again, complete with the section where she’d segued off into a small spiel where it had become apparent that her understanding of rape was that it was “when you’re hurt to make you do something you don’t want to, like housework for a person who isn’t very nice”, and that she didn’t quite understand why you’d go to prison for that.

“I know,” she answered, turning a pretty shade of pink. He swallowed. “I just don’t want to mess this up if she is… well, if this is something special.”

All he could do in response to that was shrug. “Of course, it’s special,” he replied. “Let her surprise you.”

 

And, when he returned to the staff room a week later and found Emily’s teacher marking a test that was ticks all the way down, the handwriting loud and vibrant, he smiled.

“What’s that?” he asked, feigning disinterest.

And she replied, with a smile that was just for him, “Something special.”


	18. A Problematic Doll

It was bucketing down with rain on the day that Spencer noticed the strange thing about the two dolls Emily favoured. One was the Emily doll from last year, still as pristine as the day she’d gotten her. The other was from Emily’s birthday this year, a new addition whose name was Clara.

Spencer didn’t like Clara, and it was all because of this rainy day.

“I’ve read all my books,” he announced, knocking twice on Emily’s bedroom door before peeking in. Emily was sitting cross-legged on the floor, redressing Clara in one of the outfits she’d come with, her porcelain face turned towards Spencer as Emily fiddled with the tiny snaps on the back. Uneasy with that glassy green stare, he edged around until he was looking at the top of her head instead of her face, before looking back at Emily. “Can we play?”

“I’m already playing,” she replied placidly, turning to study the neat row of doll shoes laid out in careful order next to her as she tried to decide which to affix to the porcelain foot in her lap. “And I have to play careful if I have them out, Spence. You’re welcome to stay, but you have to be careful too.”

“I can be careful,” he promised, settling next to her. But it wasn’t very interesting, deciding which outfit each doll should be dressed in for some kind of gathering that Emily assured him was very important for important dolls like hers, and he wasn’t allowed to touch them either, so it was mostly him sitting on his hands shrugging every time she asked him which shawl he liked best. So, instead, he shuffled backwards on his butt until he was at Emily’s bookshelf and then he started reading through hers instead, only tuning back in occasionally to listen to Emily’s conversations with the dolls.

“Stop fussing with your dress,” Emily scolded the Emily doll, perching her gently on a chair. “And sit straight, legs crossed. No, no, not like this, like this.” And she put Clara up next to her, pointing. “See, like I am. Sit like me, you’re a disgrace.”

Spencer smirked, going back to his book and ignoring her a bit more. There were an _awful_ lot of unicorns and people losing eyes in Emily’s books. It was startling, actually. And lots of animals talking like people. He was midway through a book on weasels fighting evil pikes when Emily’s voice startled him again.

It was sharp and angry, a tipped-over cup from her tea set the cause of the annoyance. “Ridiculous, you’re ridiculous,” she was telling the Emily doll, picking her up and carefully taking her back to her stand on the shelf after giving her an angry little shake. “Go sit here and think about what you’ve done, and you can come back when you know how to be a proper lady, not a little beast.”

“What are you doing?” Spencer asked, lowering his book. “Why is the Emily doll in trouble?”

Emily jumped, having clearly forgotten he was there. “I’m not doing anything,” she replied, staring at him. “Emily’s embarrassing Clara at the Ambassador’s dinner, it’s not on. She can’t go out in public if she’s going to act like that. No one wants to see it.”

Spencer leaned to peer past Emily at the doll. There was something off-putting about how lonely she looked up there, while the Clara doll still sat in her chair near Emily’s knee.

“Can she at least come sit next to me?” he asked. “I don’t mind if she’s not a lady… I still want to see her.”

There was a quiet moment as Emily thought about that, looking from the carefully curled hair of the Clara doll and back up to the, in Spencer’s eyes, just as pristine Emily doll. But Emily could see dust spots on her dress and hair that was slightly out of place and her sock didn’t sit quite right. She was wrong wrong wrong and couldn’t ever be better.

“No,” she said finally. “Sorry, Spencer, but she has to be punished. If she’s not punished, she’ll grow up spoiled.”

Spencer just shrunk back. He didn’t like this game; he didn’t like it at all. And he especially didn’t like the look on the Clara doll’s face, all painted on and pretty. It was fake. She was a fake doll. He went back to his reading, now deliberately ignoring the mean doll game that he _really_ didn’t like but couldn’t put his finger on just why.

But there was a loud _crack_ and a gasp that wasn’t Emily’s ‘pretend playing’ voice at all, but real and scared and horrified. Up he sprang, looking at her to find her standing with one of Clara’s dresses in her hand and the Emily doll on the ground below her.

Broken.

“Oh no,” Emily breathed, staring at it. “I was going to fix her, so she could come back to the dinner, but I… I slipped. She wouldn’t fit in the dress and I _slipped_.”

Spencer leapt up, hurrying over to try and see if she could be fixed. Even as he carefully picked her up, he could feel the porcelain grating together, her carefully attached hair coming loose where the cracks ran under it. “Oh no,” he whispered, realising just how much trouble Emily would be in. “Maybe we can glue it enough that no one will notice by just looking at her? Why were you even trying to put her in that dress, she doesn’t _fit?”_

“It’s nicer than hers,” Emily replied tearfully. “She needs to look and act nice or she’s not worth _anything_ , Spence, and Clara’s dresses are so much nicer than hers.”

Spencer just looked at her, slowly putting the Emily doll down and standing up. He didn’t feel like helping her fix it anymore. He hated these dolls, both of them. Why couldn’t they play their normal games, with none of this stupid, fussy _girl_ stuff.

“I’m going home,” he said, unreasonably upset for no good reason.

“Wait, no, Spence, don’t—I need—”

But he was already gone, running the whole way home and not caring if he made too much noise in the stupid Big House. No one was there to be bothered anyway.

 

At home, he crawled into bed with Diana, finding her asleep in a sea of books and not waking up to him pressing close. There he stayed, until the sun outside was gone and they’d missed both a sad knock on the front door and the bell ringing to let them know dinner was ready.

“Hey, baby,” Diana murmured suddenly, rolling to face him. “Why have you been crying?”

He told her, trying to explain it as best as he could without fully understanding it himself. He thought maybe it was because it reminded him that Emily could be a bully sometimes, but that didn’t really feel right, not really. She wasn’t being cruel to the doll for the sake of being cruel… but he couldn’t find the words to describe how disappointed she’d looked with her Emily doll before it had broken.

“Poor Emily, breaking something she loves so much,” Diana said when Spencer was done. “We will have to see if it can be glued.”

“I don’t want to fix it,” Spencer said angrily. “She’s horrible with the dolls. She doesn’t love them at all, she just wants them to look pretty and do nothing wrong, ever, like—” He stopped.

“Like dolls?” asked his mom.

Oh.

“I guess.” This was a moment when he felt very silly. “I don’t really see the point.”

Diana slid her arm around him, pulling him closer and tucking her chin on his shoulder as he burrowed close. It was cold and dark, Spencer pushing his head into her chest to avoid having to look at just how dark it was getting. “Emily hasn’t been as lucky as you,” Diana said cryptically, which was possibly more puzzling than the weird doll games. Emily lived in a giant house with _tons_ of books and hares outside and a room that was bigger than Spencer’s kitchen—wasn’t that lucky? “And we treat those we care for in the ways that we ourselves have been treated. If you had a doll, what would you do with her?”

That was a weird question. Boys didn’t really have dolls, at least no boy Spencer had ever met had. But that wasn’t saying much—he didn’t really meet any boys.

“Read to her,” he answered finally because, duh. Of course, he’d read to her. That was how you played with dolls, not by being mean and telling them that they were worthless. “Or maybe chess games? I don’t know. Do you think a doll would like to go outside and meet Balthy?”

That was answered with a nod from Diana, even as she snuggled lower in the bed and closed her eyes as she talked, like she was terribly tired.

“I’ve always read to you,” she mumbled, her hand stroking his arm. “And I taught you chess as soon as you were old enough to not eat the pieces. They’re very important things to you, because you learned them from someone you love. Think about that a bit next time you see Emily with her dolls.”

Spencer didn’t think he wanted to. He thought that maybe doing that would end in only being sad.

Instead, he curled up close in the quiet bed, ignored his grumbling belly, and thought about how to fix what had happened in a way that would make it better—for all of them.

 

He solved it. It had to wait until Christmas, but here was what he did for his friend:

Emily woke on Christmas morning, excited because her mom was home and they were having a _private_ Christmas this year, not one filled with strangers and people she didn’t know! Just her and mom and Spencer and Diana, together! And when it came time to give out presents, Spencer shyly slid a wrapped box towards her. It was clearly wrapped by him, bits of tape sticking out at weird places and the corners not folded over properly. A far cry from the professionally wrapped gifts she’d gotten from her mother—store-wrapped, she could tell—but she knew which she preferred.

“Spencer picked them out for you,” Diana said over her mug of cocoa, sitting side by side with Elizabeth on the couch and looking very tired. Emily didn’t think she’d been sleeping much lately. “I told him to make sure he picked two, so that one wouldn’t be lonely when you were unable to play with her.”

Mystified, Emily unwrapped her gift carefully, being sure to thank everyone before doing so, until she found an unmarked box that folded outwards. And, when she unfolded that box, she found the most startling thing. Two ragdolls with knitted bodies and eyes made of buttons, yarn-hair wild over patchwork clothes. They smiled up at her with crooked mouths, their rounded arms resting atop each other. One was in a dress with rabbit-patterned ribbons, with neat, black yarn tied into pigtails. The other was a boy in a neat sweater and jeans, his hair an absolute mess of yarn and with patches on his knees.

She couldn’t speak. There weren’t words.

Instead, she just looked up at the worriedly watching Spencer, looked back down at the amazing gift he’d given her, and then flung himself at him and hugged him tight. He hugged her back after hesitating a moment, all warm and bony and with a rapidly thumping heart against her chest.

“I hope you like them,” he said, his voice loud with her hugging him so tight. “I thought maybe these dolls we could play with together, you know, outside… it doesn’t matter if they get dirty or torn, because we can fix them easy. They’re not fragile, so we don’t have to be careful. Mom made me pick the boy one though—she said you’d like his silliness. I picked the girl because she’s pretty and fun and not delicate, like Clara.”

“I love them,” she told him, meaning every word.


	19. A Day Like Starting Over

Elizabeth came home in the summer of 1980, finding her daughter almost nine years old and much the same as when she had left. Or, rather, much the same outwardly.

Something was different, but she couldn’t quite place her finger on what. It wasn’t the hares—Baltharog had survived another year to bear another batch of baby hares on the long-suffering gardener’s grounds, with several of her previous young lingering in their own shallow scrapes to add to the brood. It wasn’t Spencer, who was just as shy and twitchy as always, never meeting her eyes but always quick to smile as he placidly followed after Emily on whatever adventure they were having that day. Their friendship had only changed in that it seemed firmer than ever, to the point where Elizabeth expected to only have to call one of their names to have both children show up.

She was startled one day to walk out of the house to find Emily and Spencer playing chess on the lawn, surveyed by Diana as she read through one of Emily’s workbooks and Emily dressed in the strangest clothes Elizabeth had seen on her daughter. Jeans, of all things, with _holes_.

“What on earth—” Elizabeth began, stopping as Diana looked up at her and raised both her eyebrows.

“Dresses and skirts are hardly tree-climbing clothes,” she said calmly, sliding over on her bench and patting the wood. “Sit with us.” The children, engrossed in their game, hadn’t even seemed to notice that Elizabeth was there. There wasn’t much else to be done; Elizabeth took the seat beside her friend and accepted the workbook she was given, opening it expecting to find Emily’s usual distracted half-attempts at completing her studies.

“Emily is hardly a tree-climbing child,” she countered, glancing at her daughter and shuddering at the state of her knees, covered in green lawn-stains and wearing thin from crawling around. Oddly, despite his third-hand clothing, Spencer was still cleaner.

“I rarely meet children who aren’t tree-climbing children,” Diana said. “The only difference is whether they ruin their best clothes or not doing it.”

Elizabeth eyed her friend, wondering if they needed to have a discussion about how her daughter was to be raised, before looking back down at the workbook in her lap. It was filled from the front to the back with long, detailed recounts of adventures Emily had undertaken, beginning at first with a long spiel on carnivorous unicorns and a family of Ethiopian coyote-bankers and ending on a very different note—a retelling of a rainy afternoon when Diana had taught them both how to write sonnets. Curious, Elizabeth flicked back and forth, watching the progression. Emily had gone from the imaginary to the very real, seemingly without any loss of enthusiasm for the topic at hand.

“Just how much freedom do you give my daughter?”  Elizabeth asked, not really angry but more curious about the differences she could sense, if not see. Something had changed while she was in Italy. “She’s going to grow up spoiled and lazy if not handled.”

“Handled?” Diana shot her a look that, on anyone else, would be severe. On Diana, it was amused, a little tired, and almost scolding. A knowing look, and Elizabeth remembered when she used to get that look at college, when she’d come home late to the dorm-room to find Diana there with the exact same expression. “She’s a child, not a horse. She hardly needs handling. Given freedom today in return for finishing their assignments, look—they’re playing chess by choice. Learning strategy, learning to think outside the box. Not every lesson a child learns is taught. Does that seem spoiled?”

Elizabeth didn’t answer, just watched Emily and Spencer play. They seemed to have added a new rule to their game, the ‘Rule of Baltharog’, which decreed that if one player could coax their hare to hop onto the board and upset the pieces, that player was declared ‘Supreme Chess-Hare’ and the other forfeited the game. Mostly, all this seemed to add was the liberal addition of biscuits to the game board, one player using their off-turns to lie on their stomach making clicking sounds at their pet, who ignored them in favour of nibbling grass and looking sleepy. The Christmas dolls were propped beside her, the girl-doll’s face looking suspiciously gnawed upon. Another thing that Elizabeth winced to see, but didn’t say anything about—after all, Spencer and Diana had bought those dolls to be played with. And a little mess came with playing, apparently. Or so she’d been told.

She was still trying to learn that.

“Eliza,” Diana said softly, touching her hand to catch her attention. “Emily does her work. She even does chores now, without complaint, because Spencer does them without being told and she desires his approval. She’s not lazy, she’s not untidy—getting dirty is not the same as being dirty. Most of all, she’s happy. Isn’t that what you asked me to do when I arrived here?”

“I asked you to tutor her.”

But Diana shook her head, leaning back on the bench and looking to the children. “My memory has always been better than yours,” she teased. “I remember you quite clearly—you told me that you were tired of seeing her scowl. Is she scowling now?”

She wasn’t.

And so Elizabeth sighed, determining to stop looming quite so much while Diana appeared to have it in hand, and said, “No. No, she’s not.” Even as she said so, Balthy leapt up with a huff as a shadow fell over the lawn, sprinting directly over the chessboard on a direct path towards the safety of the bushes and igniting a vicious argument over whether that meant Emily, whose turn it had been, had won.

“It was the hawk, not you!” Spencer argued.

“It was my turn, therefore _I_ summoned the hawk.”

“You did not! How do you summon a hawk?”

“Wouldn’t _you_ like to know?”

As one, the mothers stood, Diana clapping her hands to silence the bickering as both children’s heads snapped around to look, Emily’s eyes widening when she saw Elizabeth standing there. Down flickered her gaze, over her tatty jeans, before darting up again to catch her mother’s gaze along with a guilty grin.

But, before either of them could speak, the phone rang from inside. It was the school, Emily’s teacher to be specific, requesting an audience with Elizabeth before reports for the term were finalised. Emily, when told this, looked nothing but worried.

And Elizabeth sighed one last time, because maybe some things just never really changed. Emily was always going to be trouble, even when given all the space she needed and then more.

 

But that’s not quite how the meeting went.

“Ah, hello, Mrs. Prentiss,” said the teacher as Elizabeth walked in, offering her a seat. On the other side of the table, Elizabeth was startled, and concerned, to see the principal as well as another woman. “Hello, Emily.”

Emily, trailing behind glumly, just shrugged.

“Manners,” Elizabeth murmured.

Up snapped Emily’s shoulders, her posture straightening and face settling into the careful mask that Elizabeth had impressed upon her when meeting with foreign dignitaries, her hands behind her back and mouth in a straight, bland smile. It was better than nothing, so Elizabeth nodded at her, pleased at the polite, “Hello, Miss Malcom,” that popped out, followed by, “Hello, Mr Graham, Mrs Melrose,” directed at, Elizabeth assumed, the other inhabitants.

Introductions were quickly made, to both the principal, who Elizabeth had met, and the counsellor, who Elizabeth had not, Emily taking her seat and not making a noise. Her back was ramrod straight, her gaze locked on the bookshelf over Mr Graham’s shoulder, and Elizabeth was getting more concerned every minute that some terrible misdeed was about to be discussed. What could _possibly_ be worse than the firecracker in second grade?

“Well, this is a nice change from the majority of meetings we’ve had this term with parents,” Graham began after a glance at the other two women. Elizabeth just smiled tightly and waited. “How are you feeling about your progress this year, Emily?”

There was a beat of quiet, Emily still staring and seemingly unaware she’d been addressed until Elizabeth nudged her. She blinked, shocked, and then looked confused.

“I don’t know?” was the answer, a little whiney. Elizabeth looked at her.

That look, Emily knew, meant that she was in trouble when she got home for ‘rudeness’. She tried again, heart thudding as she ran back over everything she might have done wrong, her brain chugging over the words ‘boarding school’ over and over again. A more frightening prospect than ever, when things were just getting so _good_.

“Good, I guess,” she said, fighting the urge to huddle in close. Shoulders straight, shoulders straight, she chanted to herself. “I mean, good, thank you. I’ve been doing my work?”

Her teacher took pity on her, adding gently, “Your work, and more, Emily. Don’t undersell yourself. You’ve worked very hard this year.”

Emily shrugged, earning another mom look. After over a year of Elizabeth being away and Emily having only Diana to guide her, she’d slipped into old habits. It was a struggle, remembering everything she’d known before in order not to get in trouble with her mom, and she chanted it to herself again silently: shoulders square, back street, hands folded in lap, no fiddling, no twitching, smile smile smile smile—

“Well, it doesn’t seem like Emily has been reporting home about how well she’s been doing, so we’ll just have to do it for her,” Mr Graham said finally, taking pity on the intensely focused girl trying to remember everything at once while still responding ‘correctly’ to the answers. Emily’s teacher was watching her too, frowning a little—she’d never seen Emily so quiet or twitchy before, or sitting quite this rigidly with her face scrunched up like she was hurting. “Mrs Prentiss, we’re delighted to inform you that Emily has exceeded all expectations for her work this year. From her file, I’m given to believe that there were fears of holding her back if her work didn’t improve. That’s absolutely not the case—in fact, quite the opposite.”

“The opposite?” Elizabeth asked, tearing her attention away from wondering what on earth was wrong with her seemingly possessed daughter, whose lips were moving as though she was repeating the same word to herself over and over, for whatever end. “She’ll continue on to fifth grade?”

“Actually,” Miss Malcom cut in excitedly, sliding a folder of work onto the desk between them. “She’s finished that curricula. Even asked to take the fifth-grade end of year exams instead on top of her fourth—and she passed both with flying colours! Isn’t that right, Em?”

Emily just watched them warily, dark eyes flickering to her mom, gauging her reaction. “Spencer took them when he was six,” she said, careful not to mutter or slouch. “If he could do them when he was six, I could _definitely_ do them when I’m eight. And I did, didn’t I?”

“You really did,” beamed her teacher, her approval evident. Emily brightened under that approval, no longer looking quite so stiff and worried.

“Which brings us here.” It was the first time the counsellor had spoken, Elizabeth looking dazedly at her as she tried to bring this meeting in order in her mind, taking it from ‘Emily is in trouble’ to something new, something they’d never had before: ‘Emily has done wonderfully’. “I’ve been having some meetings with Emily over the past two months, assessing her eligibility to move up to sixth next school year instead of fifth. Of course, there’s more than just academic merit to consider. Emotional maturity, for one. Whether she has the strategies in order to cope with increased expectations and workloads, and if she has appropriate support systems in place at home, as another. Emily has a private tutor?”

“She does,” Elizabeth answered, still dazed. “Her tutor’s son attends here as well.”

“Ah, yes, Spencer. Of course, we know of Spencer. Well, while we can’t discuss Emily’s progress with Diana unless given explicit permission by you, I’m very willing to recommend Emily skip a grade, since it appears that she has the support she needs as well as the willingness to strive for excellence in a higher year. Emily, would you like that?”

Emily wasn’t even trying to hide how pleased she was anymore, no longer having to remind herself to smile; instead, she was beaming at her teacher, barely sitting still with how excited she was. “I’d love that,” she burst out with, too loud and earning a chuckle from at least two people in the room. “Sorry, I mean, I _would_ love that, thank you.”

Elizabeth said the only thing she could think to say, along with “Yes,” of course.

She said, “I’m proud of you, Emily,” and was astounded to see that smile turned on her as well. And, on the way out of the school, Emily skipping by her side, a small hand crept into Elizabeth’s. Despite the fact that a small part of Elizabeth thought that perhaps Emily was a little too old to seek her mother’s hand, she held on anyway. And there was the something different: gone was the distant, scowling stranger that Elizabeth had eaten dinner with every night; in her place was this smiling, happy, _exuberant_ girl that Elizabeth didn’t recognise and had to wonder if she’d been there all along. Because of this, because she didn’t know if this Emily was new or who she’d always been under the misery of her life before now, Elizabeth didn’t take her hand away. Maybe Diana was right. Maybe she needed to give a little, and let her daughter give in return.

The sun was out to meet them as they drove home together, and it felt like starting over.


	20. A Treat and a Nightmare

Spencer was standing on the edge of the rink in his socks, looking worried. Elizabeth came up behind him with the over-priced bottles of Coke she’d bought them, looking down at him for a while and just wondering about how strange this boy was.

“Spencer?” she asked, looking past him to where Emily was whizzing around the ice excitedly. It was a reward for Emily doing so well at school, taking them ice-skating at a nearby rink. He jumped, still unsure of how he felt about her, turning and watching her warily. Elizabeth, to her credit, met his unease with a tight smile that was the best she could muster just then. The booth they were sitting in was sticky, she was two days away from an important deadline _and_ out of easy reach in the same month she was due to hear about the ambassadorial appointment, and she hadn’t been ice skating since, well, since her and Diana had gone in college. And it was all because she’d organised this night without thought of a backup if Diana couldn’t escort them. When Diana had woken up with a migraine and a look in her eyes that sunk something cold and worried into Elizabeth’s chest, she’d picked up her phone in order to call for Emily’s old au pair—and glimpsed Emily’s expression out of the corner of her eye.

It had been wanting, so miserably wanting, and Elizabeth had realised: Emily wanted _her_ there. It was a gift from her mom—and maybe, just maybe, Emily just wanted her mom. Sometimes.

So, here she was. Looking at Spencer standing there on the outside looking in, realising that he wasn’t so different to her at all. Sometimes, Emily felt unreachable to her too.

She wondered what he was thinking.

 

Spencer had never been skating before, watching Emily swoop around in wide, careless circles. It looked terrifying. Heart-stopping. It looked… _fun_. He jittered in place, rental skates banging against his knee as he watched a group of kids Emily’s age skate beside her, talking. Maybe… maybe he could try? He’d begged out, too nervous to go out there, but maybe…

“Spencer,” said Elizabeth again, snapping his attention back to her, guilty for getting distracted without answering. “Do you need help with your skates?”

He stared at her, trying to picture her crouching on the dirty metal grating of the floor to help him tie his skates, like all the other moms were doing for their kids around him. Somehow, despite being able to picture Emily’s wild fantasies perfectly, he couldn’t picture this. “No,” he croaked nervously, shuffling away a little with his feet stinging from the cold. Maybe he should just put his shoes back on… “I don’t think I want to go out there.” After all, they were all whizzing around so fast and he was so much smaller than all of them. Just as small as Emily, but she seemed untouchable, spinning in place and going backwards as she looked over at him and pulled a disappointed face that he hadn’t joined her yet.

Elizabeth put the soda bottles on the table, wiping the condensation from them on a handkerchief before crouching—careful not to kneel against anything sticky. “Sit,” she told him firmly in a voice that allowed no quarter. Spencer, who’d never been good at disobeying, sat in the booth with his feet hanging over, watching helplessly as she slid the shakes on and began buckling them tightly, every move precise. When she was done, she picked him up and helping him walk awkwardly over to the rink, her hands on his shoulders and with him hanging onto the edge for dear life.

There was a long moment at the edge, where she let go and he didn’t, a moment of stark terror for him and wry bemusement from her. This was a _gift_ —Emily never baulked from a challenge, what on earth was this boy doing?

But then he turned and looked up at her, none of the nervous inhibition on his face anymore. Instead, there was fear, utter fear, and his fingers turned white where they gripped at her sleeve.

He was genuinely frightened.

Elizabeth saw a lot in that moment. She saw that he wasn’t Emily. She saw Diana in the shades of brown in his hazel eyes. She saw someone looking to her for help in a way Emily never really had.

“I’m scared,” Spencer admitted because Diana had always told him to say when he was worried by something and that someone would help him, and even though Elizabeth was a brisk, sharp almost-stranger to him, she was still a _mom_. “I don’t want to fall and…”

Elizabeth pulled her sleeve from his grip, leaning his hands against the side of the rink so he didn’t slip and waiting until he had a firm hold before letting go. With something thumping deep in her chest that she hadn’t felt since Emily was a toddler, she stepped back and caught sight of their belongings in their booth: her briefcase with all the paperwork she’d brought in the hope of getting it done while the children were playing, two pairs of shoes stacked neatly together, and the two dolls perched side-by-side along them. Both of them the worse for wear now, with the Emily-ragdoll looking far more tended for than her Spencer counterpart, showing just which child favoured which doll.

When she looked back at him, he was still watching her hopefully.

“Stay there,” she told him. “I’ll be back.”

 

Emily pirouetted proudly, pleased that her mother had paid for her to take those ice skating lessons all those years ago just so she could have this moment of the other kids all watching her so awed. It helped a little that she knew Spencer was watching her be really good at this too, spinning once more in the hopes that he could see. It would be even _better_ if he was out her with her, but he was always so worried about broken bones and had babbled nervously about falling over and getting his fingers run over by skates and chopped right off, gone! Looking at her own fingers as they tingled at the thought of that, Emily wondered if it was possible. Would they just slice off? That would be kind of cool.

But she could kind of see why he was worried.

Abandoning her new friends for a moment, Emily skated slowly backwards, peering over at where Spencer had been standing watching her, only to find that he wasn’t there anymore. Behind him, she could see their booth where her mom should be sitting—and wasn’t _that_ a novelty, having her mom come out with them on a treat! — but the booth was empty. Their stuff was there, so they hadn’t left her, and Emily let her momentum skate her back so she could see if they were lined up at the cafeteria.

They weren’t.

Huh.

She turned in place, searching every face and passer-by for the bright splash of Spencer’s bright orange beanie and green gloves, or her mom’s nice black coat. But they weren’t anywhere out there, which only left the ice.

Incredulously now, she looked around the rink. It was _unlikely_ , her mother—

But, there she was.

 

Spencer was getting the hang of it. He didn’t have to hold both Elizabeth’s hands now, able to balance himself with enough wobbly precision that only one hand was needed as they skated in a slow loop around the smaller rink set aside for children and learners, of which he was both. Elizabeth skated with a kind of rusty ease, her posture stiff and expression uncertain, but she was solid and reassuring beside him as he adjusted to having his weight resting upon two steel knives.

“Don’t bring your feet together like that, you’ll fall,” Elizabeth warned him, bending to nudge his knee back into place. “There you go, like that. Good boy.”

The ‘good’ boy was without any of Diana’s warmth, but Spencer still flushed to hear it. He smiled shyly, tightening his mittened grip in hers, and thought that maybe he understood why his mom was always telling him that Elizabeth was kinder than she seemed, underneath all her practised distance.

Elizabeth wasn’t entirely sure how this had happened to her, but she also wasn’t sure that she minded, a strange peace settling around them as they went on their lazy loop of the smaller rink. When she thought he’d found his ice-legs, she coaxed him a little faster, showing him how to turn and how to, more importantly, slow down, catching him every time he slipped before he could knock his knees against the ice.

Her other hand hung by her side, mostly unneeded now that he had the hang of it, and it was a sudden surprise when she felt a small hand sneak into it. For a split second, she thought it was Spencer—but he was still focused intently on his feet with his other hand in the air beside him, like a tightrope walker balancing across a rope. She looked down at her stolen hand, finding Emily looking away innocently, like she hadn’t even noticed that Elizabeth was there and the fact that they were holding hands was simply a coincidence, thank you very much.

That was how they spent the afternoon, never going faster than a walk and none of them, not even the rapid-paced Emily, caring even a little.

 

Despite the extreme pouting done by Emily on the matter, Elizabeth couldn’t be convinced to take them to McDonalds for their after-skating dinner, nor even to the greasy diner Emily spotted up the street as they drove away from the rink, bruised and tired and with hair going frizzy from the change in air temperature from inside to outside. Instead, they were instructed to shuck their heavy outer clothes—already happening, as the summer heat crowded in on them and made it hard to breathe in their coats and mittens—and brush themselves down, Emily tidying both her own hair and Spencer’s as they drove to their reservation at a restaurant downtown that Emily enjoyed, although not as much as McDonalds.

Spencer almost fell asleep in his soup, Emily running out of steam mid-main course, but they both perked up over dessert. Elizabeth watched them chatter together, their dolls seated next to them, each with their own tiny bread plate given by a friendly waiter. Spencer kept the Emily-ragdoll close, Emily only occasionally making sure her Spencer-ragdoll was as looked after.

And it was two very exhausted children and their equally—Emily assured her—exhausted dolls that were escorted home, Elizabeth doing her paperwork with the children napping beside her. The driver kept the radio down to a soft chatter, but Elizabeth doubted they’d be woken even if they cranked it. The staff were all gone for the night when they arrived at the darkened home, the gravel drive crunching under the tires of the car.

“Do you need help carrying anything in, ma’am?” asked her driver with one eye on the two children. Elizabeth looked at them too, seeing Spencer’s eyes glint in the light from the front door.

“No, thank you, Gregory. We’ll be fine.” She smiled at Spencer as she said this, seeing him blink sleepily and sit upright to gather the two dolls in his arms, the Emily-ragdoll from his lap and gently removing the Spencer-ragdoll from where Emily was hugging it. “Come on, Spencer. Bring them and I’ll carry Emily.”

Emily woke before they were even up the steps, grumbling about her sore knees and demanding to be let down to walk. Into the silent house they crept, just the three of them, Spencer pressing close until Elizabeth turned on the light of the foyer.

“We’ll put Emily and your dolls to bed and then I’ll walk you out,” Elizabeth told him, guiding both children up the staircase towards Emily’s room. For a moment, she was tempted just to put him in a guestroom—he looked tired and the walk to the lake house, while not long, was dark. But it would be a shock for Diana, to wake up and not have him returned to her, so she decided against it. Emily, once walked to her room, had no wish to be tucked in and cosseted over, helping Spencer replace the dolls on their shelf before thanking them both for a lovely night and beginning to change into her pyjamas. Even though this was the same routine as every night, Elizabeth paused for a moment—she hadn’t realised just how independent her daughter was until faced with Spencer’s need earlier that day. It was a strange thing to notice now.

Still feeling a little unneeded, she bid Emily goodnight and walked Spencer downstairs, pausing by the phone to find Anna’s handwriting on a post-it note. She recognised the number upon it with satisfaction—it looked as though her bid for ambassador was going well. But it was too late to return that call now, although she desperately needed to get her paperwork in order now more than ever, with the appointment only days away.

“Do you need me to walk you all the way out to your home?” she asked Spencer, distracted by the other missed calls listed and confused as to why they hadn’t been forwarded to her secretary’s office—wires had gotten crossed somewhere, and there were a number of important people she’d been out of reach of. Frustrating.

“Um.”

She looked at him, watching his eyes trace to the darkened hall which led to the kitchen where the backdoor he usually used was, out onto the night-soaked lawn.

“I’ll turn the light on and watch you cross,” she reassured him, putting the notepad aside. The calls were missed. Nothing to be done about it now. Instead, she did exactly as she’d promised, putting the floodlight on the backyard and standing by the door with her hand on the switch watching him walk calmly until he reached the perimeter of the light, before sprinting from there across to his door and vanishing inside with a quick wave. When the door closed behind him, she switched off the light and locked up. The day was over. And, despite the frustration of putting aside her work, she had a suspicion more good than bad would come of it.

 

Inside his home, Spencer found the lamps that his mom never turned off all still on for him, the rooms drenched in the warm light that immediately calmed his racing heart from the sprint through the shadows. He was home and ran excitedly up the hall to his mom’s door, tapping gently to see if she was awake so he could tell her about his day.

“Mom, are—”

She was. He stopped on the threshold, finding her staring at him from the bed, her hair unbrushed and her face pale and streaked with tears.

“Mom?” The words were gasped as he ran across the room and leapt on the bed with her, terrified that she’d been hurt somehow. “Are you okay—oomph!” The oomph was because she’d grabbed him and was hugging him tight, her gaze still locked past him on the open doorway and her heart slamming in his chest. He wriggled in her grasp, looking to the doorway and his dropped coat laying across it. Fear sparked.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, baby, everything is fine,” Diana whispered to him, her hands rubbing his back and arm as he tried to see what was scaring her so bad. But he couldn’t see or hear it.

The dark that crept through the door, thick and alive and looking right at her, he couldn’t see that, nor hear the whispers that crept from it and had begun hours before, when she’d been alone and the sun had still shone. Spencer looked at the doorway and saw nothing. Diana looked and saw the end.

“What is it, Mom?” he asked her.

She shouldn’t. She _couldn’t_. It was a delusion. A trick of her mind. Her brain misfiring and to tell him would be to terrify him. But… but she needed to know. She hugged her son closer, clung tight to him, and choked out, “Can you hear the dark? The voices?” and shuddered as she felt him freeze.

“No?” he rasped, eyes flickering around. “There’s no one here.”

But, even though she nodded and didn’t say another word, he could tell she didn’t believe him.

Maybe there was someone there.

Maybe he just couldn’t see it.

“Should I call Elizabeth?” he asked. They had a private line—they could call if they needed. And if someone was here, hiding in the hallway, he _should_ call.

But the phone was in the hallway, downstairs.

“No, baby, just stay with me. Stay here with me. Don’t go into the dark.” She sounded scared enough that the last thing he wanted to do was test that fear, to go out into the light of the hall and face whatever his mom knew was out there. But if it was the dark that was scaring her, he had to help her—somehow. Plus, she was hot and sweaty and her lips were cracked, and the glass of water beside her bed was empty.

Spencer, remembering how scared he’d been earlier that day and how’d he’d skated anyway, and even though he didn’t have someone steady to hold his hand this time, got out of the bed and smiled reassuringly at his mom. The last thing he wanted to do was turn his back on the door. “I’m going to get some water,” he said through his own fear. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

And, even though she begged him to stay, he did. Running through the house, hitting on every light, with his mind wildly imagining shadows lunging at him from every darkened corner. When he was done and every light was on, with a cup of water in his hands, he paused by the phone. He could call for help—he knew the number. And then Elizabeth would be here, with her steady hands and her sharp voice. Nothing scary would take on that voice, he was sure.

But it felt like a secret, so he didn’t call. He just ran back upstairs, only spilling the water a little, and crawled into bed with his mom to help her like she helped him when he had a nightmare of his own. He read to her until the sun rose again and chased the shadows away from the room, leaving only those that lingered in her tired eyes.


	21. Sometimes Home No Longer

A terrible time followed that terrible night, most of which won’t be discussed here. There were doctors and hard talks and cruel truths. Emily woke the morning after with no idea that her friend had spent the night facing his fears and coming out older. She had no idea what was coming when she sat down for breakfast with her mother, still buzzing about skating and catching up to Spencer at school and all the good things coming—until the door opened and Spencer slipped in, still in the clothes from the day before and with his eyes red-rimmed.

“Mom’s sick,” he said quietly.

Emily would always remember the look on his face, just as Spencer himself would always remember this day.

Elizabeth just lowered her fork and looked very, very sad, but not at all surprised.

And life changed.

 

“It’s back,” Diana told Elizabeth, returning from a doctor’s appointment. “They’re going to try a new regime of medication, but…”

“They’re not hopeful?” Elizabeth snorted, tossing her pen onto her desk and rubbing her forehead to stave off a headache. “No, they never are, are they? They weren’t in college. But you got better then—you can get better now.”

Taking the seat across from her, Diana picked up the pen Elizabeth had thrown and fiddled restlessly with it, very much like her son in this moment. “New medication means I’m going to be erratic for weeks, possibly months.” There was a heavy kind of misery settling into Diana’s voice as she said this, because she knew exactly what it meant. “I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to keep up with Emily’s tutoring, although I will try my—”

“Ridiculous, you’re being ridiculous,” Elizabeth snapped. This was just like Diana, she was thinking, always putting others first. Just like when she’d been pregnant with Spencer and refusing to take her medication in order to keep him safe. “You’re not going to work while this is going on.”

“We’ll have to find somewhere to stay—” Diana fell quiet at the look Elizabeth shot her, all haughty Prentiss with a lingering frustration. It was a look they’d clashed over in the past, and probably would again, but still intimidating. “I’m not taking charity. Staying here without working is _charity_ —”

“If you leave here, what kind of life can you promise Spencer?”

It was cold, perhaps, but Elizabeth hadn’t been a politician for this long without learning when to be cold and when to be kind, even if she sometimes struggled with the kind. And it worked—Diana stopped talking instantly, her already pale face paling further. There was a clarity in her eyes that Elizabeth knew would come and go over the coming months, unless she was given the space to work this out. And of course, she’d work this out—she had before and would again, because Elizabeth refused to lose her friend once more.

“I retract nothing that I offered you when you left William. I told you then: if you left him before he abandoned you—and don’t look at me like that, you know he was planning on it at the first sign of this recurring—you would have a home here. That has _not_ changed.”

“Spencer’s schooling—”

“Is paid for the next three years and wouldn’t be a factor anyway. That was never a part of you working for me.”

The two women looked at each other, before Diana slowly placed the pen down on the desk. Before she could take her hand away, Elizabeth laid her hand over hers. Gone was the politician’s mask, leaving just stark worry in its place as she noted how much weight Diana had already lost, the tired misery in her eyes.

“Emily can’t stay with me while you’re gone,” Diana said finally, closing those eyes. Elizabeth was already late to fly to DC in order to take up the ambassadorial position she’d been offered, finally. What she’d been working on her entire career, and what she was putting on hold in order to help Diana through the last week. “Spencer is already going to have to see… I won’t expose another person’s child to that.”

Elizabeth nodded. She already knew this. Emily was not going to like it, but Emily had to learn that sometimes life was hard. “She’ll attend DC with me. I’ve already applied for the transfer through her schools, since it’s likely she’ll have to spend at least a full term there. Will you tell Spencer?”

It was Diana’s turn to nod, the weight on her shoulders crushing. Not only was her mind failing her, slamming the door shut permanently on her slim hopes of returning to her career, but for it to so horrendously impact her son right when he was happiest… she didn’t think she could forgive herself for this, and doubted he’d forgive her either.

“Do I tell him it’s only temporary?” she asked, not really expecting an answer. Right now, no one could answer that. No one knew.

 

They had climbed their tree. Neither really knew why they’d walked so wordlessly to the tree they’d first climbed together, except that it had just felt right. There they sat, two children with their faces tipped up against the wind, watching the sun on the lake and the people who weren’t affected by their world changing. It was three weeks after the night Diana had seen voices in the dark, and the fallout was here.

“I don’t want you to go,” Spencer told Emily, his fingers gripping tight to the tree branch below. Like he could hold onto this moment much like he could the tree, refusing to be flung from the boughs to the uncaring ground below. “A whole term? What will I do without you?”

Emily just shook her head, because if she talked about it, she’d cry.

She didn’t want to go either.

 

The morning that they were to leave was tumultuous. Emily had responded to the news of their leaving with a terrifying kind of calm, with Elizabeth wondering if maybe her daughter was going to take the lessons on composure that she’d been given for years and finally put them to good use.

As it turned out, Emily had simply been biding her time.

Elizabeth woke to find that Emily had been up for hours. That was concerning, even more concerning as Emily did nothing but sit at the breakfast table moodily eating cereal as Elizabeth found that things that had been in place the night before were suddenly no longer in place anymore.

“Have you packed?” she asked Emily as she darted through on a search for a packet of personal documents, including their passports.

Emily chewed her cereal and said nothing.

“Emily, I asked you if you’d packed?” Elizabeth barked twenty minutes later, having still lost the passports and now also her purse and plane tickets. The passports weren’t integral; the rest was very.

The cereal now a mushy mess that refused to be chewed, Emily swishing it around in her mouth and swallowing loudly, maintaining unblinking eye-contact with her mother, who stopped and narrowed her eyes at her.

“Why aren’t you dressed?” she asked, folding her arms and staring her daughter down. Diana and Spencer took this moment to enter, finding themselves in the middle of a stare-off, neither daughter nor mother flinching. “Alright, where did you hide everything?”

Emily put her spoon down, wiping her fingers on a napkin and smiling sweetly at Diana.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mommy,” said Emily. “But we’d better hurry. If we miss the plane, we’ll have to _stay_.”

Elizabeth took a deep breath. Emily squared her shoulders.

And the household exploded.

 

The drive to the airport was silent. Spencer huddled close to his mom, ignoring Emily. Emily sat alone, ignoring everyone, both her ragdolls on her lap and her expression monstrous. The missing documents had been found—after some liberal guilt-tripping applied by Diana. From there, Emily had refused to dress, declaring all her clothes ‘unwearable’ and screaming until she almost threw up when Elizabeth tried to forcibly dress her. That was followed by finding that the neatly packed suitcases sitting beside Emily’s desk had all been very neatly _unpacked._ With time very quickly running out and Emily’s tantrums turning into genuine shrieking fury from the overwrought nine-year-old, Spencer and Diana watching in mixed horror/awe as Elizabeth resorted to screaming back at her daughter, Elizabeth had repacked the suitcase by picking up random items and throwing them into the waiting suitcases.

Emily, with astounding strength for a sobbing nine-year-old, had picked up the suitcase and thrown it _out_ the open window, all of them staring as dresses and underwear spiralled through the air to scatter on the lawn below.

“I hate you and I’ll never leave!” she’d screamed, slamming her foot on the ground below.

Elizabeth, taking a deep breath, considered smacking her daughter for the first time in her life.

Instead, she’d smiled, said, “Fine,” and then picked Emily up. Ignoring the hands battering on her back and the kicking, shoeless feet, she carried her downstairs, out the front door, and tossed her boldly into the almost-packed car. “We’re leaving, now. If you won’t pack your belongings, then you don’t _get_ belongings. Diana, are you ready?”

Spencer, running after, had stopped only to grab the two ragdolls sitting on the bed. They couldn’t be left behind—they _couldn’t_. How would Emily remember him without them? Sliding into the car beside his mother, as the housekeeper simultaneously waved at them as she collected scattered bits of clothing, he hugged the dolls close and watched Emily.

She had looked stunned, staring at her mother with her mouth agape. Eyes ticking back and forth from her mom to the door, as though expected that Elizabeth would say, “Just kidding—we’ll get your stuff and then leave.”

But Elizabeth hadn’t, and here they were. Driving to the airport with Emily staring at her shoeless feet, her face pale and stunned, the dolls that Spencer had handed her on her lap.

“If you make a single sound in the airport, you’ll lose those too,” was all Elizabeth had said upon seeing the dolls. Emily said nothing, hugging them close and curling up, ignoring Diana suggesting that she put a seatbelt on.

 

And before they knew it, it was time to say goodbye and neither Spencer nor Emily had been able to speak to each other for their final, frantic morning. The boarding call for the plane that would take them away came, Emily standing watching the planes out the window with her socked feet scrunched up against the cold tiles. Spencer came up behind her, looking as well. One of those planes was hers…

This was it.

“I don’t want you to go,” he said again, glancing at her and seeing a tear drip from her nose to her lip. Blinking rapidly, tears on her lashes and her breath hiccupping, his own face began to burn.

“I tried,” she whispered, wrapping her arms tight away the two dolls. “I thought…”

Spencer swallowed around a lump in his throat, lurching forward and hugging her tight, his cheek against hers and plenty of tears between them. The dolls hit the ground as she let go and fiercely hugged him back, fingers digging into his shirt and crying openly.

“Maybe if I don’t let go,” she mumbled wetly into his shoulder.

But her mother was calling her name and she was terrified of losing her dolls too, along with everything else. So, she let go, reaching down and picking up the Emily-ragdoll, looking at it and choking on a wet lump of sadness in her throat. She thrust it at him, shoving it into his chest and letting go so he had to take it before stooping and grabbing her Spencer-ragdoll, hugging that instead of him.

“Take it,” she said, rubbing her eyes on her sleeve. “I’ll come back for it, okay?”

“Okay,” rasped Spencer, hugging it like she was hers and watching as she turned and marched away to the waiting plane, shoeless with unbrushed hair, just like the first day they’d been friends. The last he saw of her was her vanishing into the boarding gate, refusing to hold her mother’s hand and with the Spencer-ragdoll looking back over her shoulder.

She didn’t look back.

He stood and watched until the planes all flew away, waving at each and every one of them just in case she was still watching. And there he stayed, until Diana picked him up and carried him from the airport, her heart breaking as he cried into her shirt, clinging like he was scared of ever being forced to let go.


	22. Two Lonely Souls, and Ethan

The time after was lonely. Emily found herself sleeping in a big, new room with nothing familiar, filled soon with new things that she didn’t really care for much, not like she had for the things at home. She wasn’t allowed toys since she’d left all hers behind, and her new clothes were dresses and skirts, all for being ‘seen’ in, not for having fun. Spencer found himself the sole guardian of two big Sometimes Houses without enough people to fill them, spending his days wandering the sweeping grounds alone because he didn’t want to go into the big house and see how empty it was without Emily there to greet him.

They found things to fill the time. Emily didn’t have time to be bored, swept from function to function before the school term began, spending all her holidays sitting prim and polite in her nice new clothes and parroting everything she’d learned when asked, like a pet poodle on show. Spencer, on the other hand, had all the time in the world to notice what was missing now that his mom slept more often than she didn’t and Emily was 2,759.9 miles away from him—he’d looked it up to be sure. He kept detailed logs of everything Balthy and her offspring did to share with Emily when— _if_ —she returned, and he pulled out his adventure books and altered them all for one player instead of two.

“Thanks, baby,” Diana said on this day when he brought in a plate of dinner for her. Elizabeth had insisted upon retaining the cook for them, citing that Diana would be too ill to keep them fed, and Spencer had been spending a lot of time in the kitchen with her. The lady had taken pity on his woeful need to talk to _someone_ and had begun teaching him how to cook; the lasagne he was bringing into his mother right now he’d helped roll the pasta for.

But he didn’t tell her this, because he didn’t really know how to talk to his mom when she looked like this, all skinny and lost and only half-paying attention.

“Tell me about your day?” she asked him. Spencer, with one eye on the clock—because if Emily was able, she’d call at his four p.m. _on the dot_ and he had to be there for that—read his Balthy log out to her and told her how the birds had looked over the lake today.

After all, it was up to him to look after her now that Elizabeth wasn’t there.

 

Emily’s first day at school was a disaster. The class she was in was much larger than her one at home, and all _girls_ only. She was sulky and cross that this was a new school that didn’t know how hard she’d worked to be here in this grade instead of the one below, and everyone was older and with sour faces as they watched her. In all likelihood, the girls of her class didn’t think much about her at all, but Emily was sure that every eye was on her and _hateful_.

Besides, what was the point? She’d worked so so _so_ hard last school year and all it had gotten her was being taken away from where she wanted to be… so why bother at all? She snapped at her teacher, refused to introduce herself to the class, cried when she was asked back during recess, and was sent home that night in disgrace. But it didn’t matter. Elizabeth wasn’t there to scold her, just a harried looking au pair who didn’t seem to like Emily very much and wasn’t her old au pair from home anyway. She cooked Emily a dinner that she burnt, wouldn’t let her use the phone, and sent her to bed early without dessert.

“Your mother will likely have words for you when she gets home,” she’d said upon closing the door on Emily and the Spencer-ragdoll. But she didn’t, because Elizabeth didn’t come home, and Emily figured that’s what came with being Very Important. When you were Very Important, other things, like bad daughters, just weren’t important at all.

She cried herself to sleep, knees to her chest and face pressed into the raggedy hair of Spencer-doll, wishing there was someone else there besides the people who didn’t like her.

 

Spencer’s first day of school without Emily wasn’t much better. He had a new teacher who seemed confused by him, telling him to pick his own seat and leaving Spencer to edge through the bigger kids to try and find a spot. He ended up at the back of the room, three rows away from Ethan and not near anyone he really knew, the students in front of him too tall for him to see past. Slouching in his seat, he drew hares in his notebook as the teacher talked, the hares becoming two kids racing alongside the side of a lake…

“You need to pay attention,” the teacher told him on the way out, glancing at his scribbled-on notebook. “I don’t know why you’re even here, you’re a child.”

Miserable, Spencer shrugged, trudging over to the elementary school side to spend an art session poking blankly at his pots of paint, the seat beside him empty.

“Well, you’re a glum sight,” his art teacher told him, stopping beside him with his arms full of student pottery. “Where’s my dinosaur diagram?”

“I don’t really want to draw dinosaurs,” Spencer told the sheet of paper in front of him, refusing to lift his gaze to meet the teacher’s eyes.

The teacher watched him silently, noting the empty seat and his miserable expression.

“Well then,” he said, juggling the pots a little and trying to look approachable. “How about you draw me what you want then? I hear Emily’s spending a term away. Are you writing to each other?”

Spencer looked up at him, blinking. Writing? Letters?

He _loved_ writing letters.

“Paint her something and send it along,” the teacher suggested, turning away. “She’ll love it.”

Re-energised, Spencer did, until the bell went for lunch and he was turned out of the classroom to spend the hour alone, wandering the yard and avoiding any places they’d sat together. Where would he go? In the end, he avoided the cafeteria and went back over the high school side, hoping that he’d be ignored if he sat by the library until it opened. And he was, for a while, before the bench thumped loudly as someone sat down heavily beside him.

“Where’s your friend?” Ethan asked, snapping his muesli bar in two and offering Spencer half. Spencer winced at the germs but accepted the food because that was how lunch-trades went. Emily had taught him that. In return, he surrendered a quarter of his apple, wishing Emily was here to eat the germy muesli.

“She’s in DC,” Spencer answered, picking crumbs from the broken-up bar. No more words wanted to come about _that_ , so he fell quiet, eating the muesli just to stop himself from talking.

“Oh. Well, that sucks. It’s shit when friends move away.”

“She’s coming back.” Spencer hoped she was, anyway. Neither of their moms was forthcoming about that, just saying that they’d have to ‘wait and see’, like they were waiting for a present and not waiting to find out if their best friend was gone _forever._ “You’ll see. This is just for a little while.”

“I see.” Ethan was watching him carefully, handing over the rest of his muesli bar to Spencer, who ate it dolefully. “Well, you know. Even if it’s just a little while, you don’t have to sit here looking sad. You can hang out with me.”

Spencer looked up at him, trying to work out if this was some kind of trick. But it didn’t _look_ like a trick—Ethan looked honest enough, and he’d never played a trick on Spencer before. And even though the kids in class were mean to Ethan a lot, he was never mean back, not ever.

“Why?” he asked suspiciously.

“Because everyone needs a friend, right?  I mean, I guess. I wouldn’t really…”

There was a broken kind of silence between them, Ethan looking away. Spencer glanced down at the empty muesli wrapped on Ethan’s lap, the food he’d given away without thought. Had he done that because it was how it was done at school, or had he done it because he wanted to be Spencer’s friend and thought he had to give him something to do that?

Spencer had used to do that, when he was lonely and scared of being turned away.

“Sure, we can be friends,” he said, his heart hurting at the reminder of what it was like before Emily, and how close he was to it being like that again. But because he knew that Emily _was_ coming back—she _had_ to be—and she came first, he added, “Until Emily comes home.”

“Until Emily comes home,” agreed Ethan with a wide, happy smile. And, just like that, they were friends, until Emily came home anyway.

Sometimes friends, which was definitely better than no friends.

 

Spencer didn’t tell Emily about Ethan and, in return, she didn’t tell him about her curious new inability to make friends. Instead, they talked on the phone for as long as their respective mothers would let them, about the hares and their schoolwork and everything that wasn’t too important to them. Spencer told her off for thinking she didn’t have to do schoolwork now, that it didn’t matter—after all, he said, if she fell behind, then how would she ever catch up with him when she came home?

And he was so sure that she was coming home that she was forced to believe it too.

Their birthdays came and went without a visit from either; Elizabeth was too busy to fly her daughter home and Diana too frightened of flying to take her son either. Turning ten was a morose affair for the both of them, as 1980 continued on towards its end without seeming to improve.

Diana didn’t get worse, but she didn’t get better either. Ethan taught Spencer magic tricks and, in return, Spencer taught him math. Balthy’s latest round of babies grew up and left home. The leaves began to fall. Emily and Elizabeth continued not speaking to each other unless they had to, Emily spending all her spare time on her lessons to avoid having to look at her mother even a little.

And life went on, 2,759.9 miles away from each other with no end in sight.


	23. Sometimes Friends, Always

The last day of term before Christmas break came fast, with no word on whether Emily and Elizabeth would be returning. Spencer unpacked his locker slowly before trudging out to where the buses were waiting, watching every other student race around excitedly for the coming holiday. They didn’t have a big, empty house to go home to, a house that wasn’t really his anyway. They weren’t going home to a mom who only seemed to see him sometimes anymore, more focused on the things that her mind told her were real instead of the things he _knew_ were real. She’d read him the same book five times this week, refusing to let him play outside in case someone saw him and took him away. He doubted she’d remember Christmas…

“Spence!” Ethan thumped up, overbalancing as he tried to get his backpack on while running and almost swinging it into Spencer’s side. Hair everywhere and mouth in a wide, stupid grin, he looked just as excited as everyone else and Spencer resented him for it. “Christmas, Specs! Are you excited?”

“Yes,” lied Spencer, shoulders slumped. Ethan caught the same bus as him now that Diana had decided driving was too dangerous, so it wasn’t even like he could escape his exuberance. Not that he really wanted to. Sour or not about his miserable home, this was the last time he’d see him until after the break. Going home to a friend felt like a long time ago, and a different Spencer.

“Aw, you don’t really look like you are. Hey, here, I made you a present. Like it?”

Spencer took the gift he was offered, unpeeling graph paper that seemed endless, the gift halving in size as it was unwrapped. “Oh man, Eth,” he stammered out, flushing hot with worry and shame. “I didn’t get you anything…” The paper was still unpeeling, unpeeling, unpeeling… glitter began to drift from the wrapping onto Spencer’s hands and shoes, dangerously festive.

“Nah, that’s alright. I don’t need presents. Besides, _nothing_ could top the Christmas Rocking Hare.”

Spencer froze, his brain and his ears struggling to work out what Ethan had said. The paper, as though to cement his concern, unfolded itself in his hands to reveal a silver and gold spray-painted pinecone, glitter stuck loosely to the exposed parts of the woody cone scales and a pipe-cleaner monstrosity with a cardboard guitar glued to it wedged firmly on top.

Spencer stared at it.

“It’s a hare on a pinecone,” said Ethan helpfully, poking the pipe-cleaner. “See, these are his ears. And that’s his guitar, because he’s a rocker hare. And there’s glitter, because it’s Christmas. You can put it on your tree! You see, because I drilled a hole in the bottom to stick it on, even though we weren’t supposed to use the power tools in shop class and I drilled my finger a bit too.” A dirty, band-aided finger was proffered as evidence, Spencer backing away fast from it. “Do you like it?”

Spencer, still staring at his now-glittered fingers, silver paint flaking onto his palms, told the honest to god truth. “I really, really do,” he said, grinning at the ugly gift. It was _amazing_. “No one’s ever made me a Christmas Rocking Hare before!”

“Patented Ethan-Co so don’t go selling my secrets to anyone. Hey, Spence, look.” Ethan wasn’t looking at Spencer or his fantastically awful gift anymore; instead, he was looking past them, past the bus bay to where a line of cars was picking up their kids. “I think something even better than a Christmas Rocking Hare just showed up.”

Spencer seriously doubted anything could be better than a Christmas Rocking Hare, and so turned dubiously around to see what Ethan was looking at—just in time for a shrieking fury of dark hair and waving arms to crash into him from where she’d been sprinting across the oval.

“Spence!” screamed Emily into his ear, hugging him so tight that he couldn’t breathe, the pinecone digging into his chest. “Spence, Spence, Spence!”

Dazed, he wrestled his arms loose and hugged her back, seeing his mom standing by the gate to the school and smiling.

Emily was _home._

 

Christmas passed in an exhausting blur of very important things. Emily had to be caught up on the state of the hares and the lake and their tunnels through the hedges, which Spencer had been a little lax in upkeeping towards the end of the term. After that, they had to try and climb every tree to make up for lost time, sprinting inside every hour with runny noses and reddened hands to jump and down in front of the fireplace before sprinting back outside. The hare boxes needed fresh hay and they were tasked with going to the market with Garett to buy enough roughage to get them through the cold winter blowing in. Every night, both children crashed out hard, up with the sun the next morning in order to face another day of very important things to do in case Emily left again.

Spencer rather forgot he’d ever been lonely.

Emily forgot to be angry all the time.

And the household was, on the surface, at peace for some time at least.

“How are you?” Elizabeth asked Diana as they took an afternoon away from responsibilities to help the children decorate a Christmas tree they’d almost missed out on, with Diana not up to tracking one down and Elizabeth barely making it home in time before the winter storms blew in.

“Coping,” was all Diana said, which Elizabeth knew meant ‘don’t ask, don’t make me tell you’. She respected that, for now, although they both knew it wasn’t the needed ‘better’.

Emily, who was being lectured on how to decorate a Christmas tree by Spencer, who had Opinions about the subject—she’d never had to before, with Elizabeth paying one of the hired help to do so—was engrossed in her lesson. Left to their own devices, the tree soon turned out to be very lopsided with the bulk of the decorations at child height, Elizabeth’s eye twitching a little when she saw the mess they’d made of it.

“It’s, uh…” she began, looking it up and down as they both stared at her hopefully.

“Liz,” Diana murmured warningly.

“…it’s wonderful, you guys did wonderfully.” She chose the political answer, even as she looked up to find some kind of painted pinecone monstrosity at the top of the tree where her grandma’s heirloom crystal angel should be. No amount of staring at it brought forth answers to the questions the sight of it created and, in the end, she decided to pour another drink and just enjoy the evening.

Later this night, Diana would question her about this. The children were asleep, bundled in blankets at a safe distance from the fire, books and empty mugs scattered around them and neither making a sound. Fire crackling and the room warm and closed in, Diana and Elizabeth sat together on the couch with a blanket to share, watching muted movies on the TV set.

“You’re being very accommodating,” Diana said quietly, her eyes more on the children than the movie playing. “Allowing Emily to sleep on the floor? Letting the Christmas Rocking Hare stay atop the tree? You’ve hardly fussed at all today.”

“Am I not allowed to be accommodating over Christmas?” Elizabeth retorted, annoyed by the implication. Was she not allowed to give her daughter and friend a good Christmas? They were ten now—the magic of Christmas wouldn’t last much longer. At that thought, she glanced at Emily, wondering: did she still believe in Santa? She’d never given any indication otherwise but, then again, pretending to believe in order to gain double the presents was entirely her style and had been since she was four.

This supposition was more accurate than Elizabeth would know, although Emily had been six when she’d clued in, not four. Spencer, on the other hand, had never believed in Santa, although he’d always been careful not to ruin it for anyone else who still believed, and a small part of him kind of hoped that his parents were wrong. There had to be _something_ magic about Christmas, he was sure. Diana, who’d witnessed first hand Spencer’s terror when faced with the idea of the tooth fairy—a magical denizen breaking and entering into his home in the night-time—had wisely decided that Santa wasn’t quite the tale that Spencer needed, despite how wholly he enjoyed the monsters and ghouls of Halloween. They really didn’t need another Easter breakdown.

Diana hadn’t answered her yet, just continued watching the children. Uneasily, Elizabeth noticed that her eyes would occasionally track to the corner of the room, watching something that Elizabeth couldn’t see. There was a tremor to the hand resting on her knee, a shiver that ran throughout her whole body. Side-effects of the medication that wasn’t working, along with the thinness of her hair and the bruising up her arms.

“You’ve never been accommodating before,” Diana finally said, suspicion layered under the exhaustion. “Why now?”

That was a complicated question with a myriad of complicated answers, beginning but not ending with Elizabeth’s realisation that time was slipping through her fingers. She had the career she’d always wanted, but it was slamming up against these things that she hadn’t ever before spared a thought for casting aside. Her daughter, who she was suddenly aware was growing older and harbouring grudges, the last three months in DC hammering that point home elegantly. Her friend, who was fading before her eyes. The boy she hadn’t really thought much of before except for how he could improve her daughter, who she’d come home to find looking taller and tireder with a wary gleam to his eyes that hadn’t been there when she’d left—and the strange realisation that she worried for him, cared for him, despite hardly really _knowing_ him. There were the whispers of an upcoming opening in London, taking over as the incumbent ambassador there. A three-year posting.

Diana didn’t look like she had three years left in her, not three years safe and sane. The ghosts that had haunted their college years were finally here.

And Elizabeth was battling her own ghosts.

She changed the subject instead. “About their Christmas presents…”

 

Their Christmas presents were, in one word, astounding.

Emily and Spencer stared at them. Diana and Elizabeth had conspired, much like they had in not telling Spencer that Emily was returning so soon, to give them something that they could enjoy entirely, together. Even though Elizabeth had been wary—they were hardly educational, or safe, or _ladylike_ , but Diana had won this one.

“Do you like them?” Diana asked. “Brave knights such as you two need brave steeds to carry them.”

Elizabeth just pursed her lips and forced a tight smile when Emily looked warily at her, likely expecting the long-wanted gift to be torn away from her.

“Are they _real?”_ Emily asked suspiciously. After all, she’d been asking for a bike since she was old enough to sound out the word, and the answer before had always been a resounding ‘no’.

“Are they _ours?”_ Spencer asked, overwhelmed.

“Yes, and yes.” Diana beamed as both kids leapt forward with twin yelps of excitement, wincing a little at how shabby Spencer’s second-hand bike looked next to Emily’s shining new one. His was a red so sun-worn it was almost pink; hers a deep, deep blue with a bell that gleamed. They’d tried, unsuccessfully, to remove the basket from Spencer’s before finally giving up and hoping he didn’t mind it.

He didn’t.

“We can put stuff in here,” he chattered enthusiastically to Emily. “Like chessboards and books and notebooks and pens and—”

“Lunch!” she added, just as excited.

“—and Balthy and the dolls and—”

“Alright, ground rules,” Elizabeth broke in fast, suddenly picturing all the things that could, and would, go wrong. Crestfallen, the children silenced. The list of rules, as expected, was long and stifling but, as they told themselves after, at least they had _bikes_.

“So long as you stay,” Spencer whispered to Emily afterwards, as he read the manual on how to care for their new steeds, “this is going to be the best year _ever.”_

“So long as I stay,” Emily parroted nervously, glancing at her mom.

 

It was almost three weeks until a chance came for them to use their new gifts, since one of the _rules_ was that they weren’t allowed to ride them around inside the house—which was ridiculous considering how ridable their long halls were, Emily thought—and the new year brought with it sweeping storms of sleet and ice that Elizabeth banned them from being outside in. Even lessons were put aside, with Elizabeth telling them to enjoy the holidays—which had _never_ happened before, not in Emily’s living memory. They spent those three weeks locked inside, going stir-crazy with their noses pressed to the window and worrying about their hares. Elizabeth was barely there, but Diana stuck by the outside ban, telling them that they’d surely break every bone if they stepped one foot outside.

Emily thought that that was a hypothesis that definitely needed testing. Spencer just thought that it sounded rather unscientific, really.

And the bikes sat waiting.

The day came that Diana begged out early after lunch, leaving the kids sitting in the warm kitchen drawing together. She vanished to sleep, her expression wan, and Emily watched her carefully. As soon as the door shut, she looked to Spencer, and smiled.

Uh oh, thought Spencer.

“Mom’s gone all day,” Emily said, throwing down her pencil atop a careful drawing of the stupid girls at school being eaten by Bradley, her new dragon friend, complete with smoking nostrils and gnashing teeth. Bradley was big and loud and _black_ and no one ignored him or told him to settle down—Emily wished _she_ could be Bradley. “Your mom will sleep for _hours_. She sleeps so much now, like an old nana.”

Spencer scowled. “She’s not well,” he snapped, always irritable when Emily didn’t appreciate just how unwell his mom was. He’d been doing a lot of reading lately, which annoyed her too. He figured if he read enough about schizophrenia, he’d be able to cure it by the time he was old. Probably twenty-five. That seemed enough time, and then his mom would be all better and like she used to be.

“Yeah, yeah, I know—but the point is, we’re _alone_. And so are our bikes.” Expectantly, she looked at him, as he looked to the window. It was blustery and cold outside, but not raining and the roads were mostly clear and dry… and he _really_ wanted to try his bike out.

He put down his pencil too.

 

“So,” said Emily, after they’d pushed their bikes far enough away from the house that they were sure no one would be able to see them breaking the rules. Further along the narrow bikeway that circled the lake than they’d ever bothered to go before, behind another bank of holiday houses shuttered up tight against the cold. Spencer glanced over there, recognising the bus stop where Ethan got off, remembering his sometimes friend and looking once more at the silent row of houses. “Are you paying attention?”

“Yeah,” he lied, looking at her. “Uh, wait, what?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Well, I obviously know how to ride a bike,” she declared, dinging the bell on her bike proudly as she bounced on her feet, scarf fluttering in the freezing wind. “But, um, do you?”

He didn’t. No one had ever taught him before. He looked at his bike, narrowing his eyes and trying to figure it out. Maybe he should have checked the library for a guide on riding bikes before they’d left the house…

Emily, who very much did _not_ know how to ride a bike, since it was hardly something that someone could have been hired to teach her and Elizabeth was far too busy to even realise that something like that needed to be taught, dinged her bell again expectantly. She was absolutely sure that she didn’t really need to be taught, she’d just naturally know it, like French or dancing or prayers—conveniently forgetting that, at one point or another, she’d had to be taught all of those things.

“How hard can it be?” Spencer finally said, a notable amount of hope in his voice.

As it turned out, the answer was: very.

Bruised and battered, with sticks in their hair and their warm clothes soaked through, three hours later found two sorry sights sulking with their equally battered bikes tossed to the side of the path. Spencer was trying to draw a diagram of his bike-riding technique in the dirt, failing to account for how frozen the ground was. Emily was on her back, ignoring the ground oozing through her jacket and scowling up at the swollen clouds above. Bikes _sucked_.

“I’ve got an idea,” she announced, leaping up and brushing mud from her hands, leaving wide streaks on her pants. “You hold the bike and run alongside while I pick up speed—then let go. I’ll be totally balanced then. And I’ll come back and do the same for you after.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“Nonsense. What’s the worst that could happen?”

They’d remember that after.

 

“Jump, Emily!” Spencer shrieked, chasing Emily and the escaping bike as all three of them crashed through the undergrowth, hurtling right for the barely-frozen edge of Lake Washington. The ice was choppy and thin, broken up from where people had been kicking at it—she’d go right through if she hit! “Jump!”

She did, leaping from the bike with a scream and landing hard on her side, the bike wobbling along on its own momentum, skidding out onto the ice and falling to its side, sliding further out and laying there temptingly with one wheel still spinning. Spencer, moving too fast to slow down, tripped over Emily and hit the ground hard, yelping as his elbow caught his nose and his glasses flew away.

Ow.

When he sat up, Emily was curled on her side, arms around her stomach and wheezing, her breath knocked clean out of her. There was blood on her lip and she’d lost her bobble hat too.

“I. Kept. My… balance,” she wheezed out, gasping with every word, before spitting and yelling with horror, “I lost a tooth!” And she had; on her palm was the baby tooth that had outstayed all of her others, leaving her looking gappy and shocked. Spencer covered his own mouth, trying not to laugh at how odd she looked now—and very glad he’d lost all his long enough ago that she couldn’t see what _he_ looked like with gaps in his mouth.

Laughter forestalled anything else. Spencer leapt up, whirling around and squinting at the brown and grey blurs around him, trying to spot who was laughing like that.

“Shut up!” yelled Emily, leaping up too with her hands on her hips and her expression furious. Spencer looked at her, since he couldn’t see much but blur beyond her. “I’d like to see you do better!”

“Better than that?” came a voice that Spencer _knew_. “Buddy, I’ve seen circus dogs do a better job than that. Where’s your specs, Specs?”

“Ethan?” Spencer asked cautiously, watching the blur move towards them until it unblurred into the form of his sometimes friend, kitted out in a violently orange parka and neon green hat. He stooped, reappearing with Spencer’s glasses that he wiped on his shirt before handing them over, unbroken and only a bit smeary. “What are you doing here?”

“I live that way. Heard screaming. Is that your bike?” This last question was directed to Emily, who was continuing to scowl, not liking this boy at _all_. Spencer wilted. He didn’t want them to hate each other… But Ethan didn’t seem to notice that Emily was furious with him, much like he never seemed to realise that the kids in class were being mean when they called him Pretty Boy, even though Spencer knew they were. As always, he seemed immune to mockery—something Spencer envied. “Come on, I’ll grab a broom from home and we’ll drag it back. Otherwise you’ll get wet and freeze into a cranky snowgirl. Is your mouth alright?”

“Yeah, and then what?” Emily grumbled, trudging after Ethan back to his house to get something to rescue her bike with. “You’re going to sit there and tease us more because we’re not good at riding bikes? We should just go _home_.” After a beat, she acknowledged Ethan’s concern, shoving her tooth into her pocket and muttering, “Fine,” with the ‘F’ coming out strange.

“Well, you could go home,” Ethan replied, pausing by his back gate and glancing at Spencer with a wink. “Or, you know, you could stay… and I could teach you how to actually ride a bike, without hurting yourself more.”

They looked at him, as he did nothing but grin back at them.

“Why would you do that?” Emily asked. Spencer just lingered, torn between wanting to show that Ethan was his _friend_ and being too shy to admit it to Emily in case she told him he had to pick one to like more. “You don’t even know us.”

“Well, sure I do. Don’t I, Spence?”

Emily and Ethan both looked at Spencer, who stood frozen. Ethan’s face cheerfully expectant, Emily’s suspicious. For a single heartbeat, Spencer thought of denying it—saying that he didn’t know Ethan at all, just in case…

But the notion passed. Ethan was his _friend_ , and so was Emily. As Ethan’s smile slipped a tiny bit, worry appearing in its place, Spencer nodded firmly.

“Em, this is Ethan,” he said, prepared to stick up for his friend if he had to. “He’s my friend too.”

“Oh.” Emily looked at Ethan again. Well, she figured, if Spencer liked him, he must be okay. “Well, okay then. You can teach us to ride, if you don’t laugh at us anymore.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Ethan said loyally, smiling once more.

From then on, whenever they weren’t two, they were three.


	24. The Broken Leg

It had been snowing since approximately the dawn of time. They’d been kicked out of the big house by the housekeeper, frustrated with their new game of ‘who can balance best’. The answer was obviously Emily and, because of that, it had become her new favourite game. Spencer wasn’t quite as fond, but he’d read all the books and drawn so much that all his pencils were worn down, so he really didn’t have much of a choice but to participate. Emily wouldn’t let him borrow any of hers because she didn’t want to draw, she wanted to balance.

Stuck in Spencer’s house, there wasn’t much to balance on. Emily won at balancing on the table, they both got distracted from balancing on the bannister and spent two hours taking turns sliding down it at varying angles, Spencer gave up at balancing on the bookshelf since it would involve far too much crashing, and Spencer’s bed was hardly even a challenge for either of them. Out of things to do, they sat by the front door and wondered if winter would ever end.

“Is your mom asleep again?” Emily asked, tapping her feet restlessly on the wood.

“I guess.” Spencer didn’t really want to go look. His mom had yelled at him yesterday, for encouraging people into the house… which was weird, because he hadn’t encouraged _anyone_ into the house, except Emily. “We should be a bit quiet, just in case.”

“Hmph,” said Emily. She poked at the hole in her gum with her tongue, searching for her new tooth. Her feet thumped against the door, gentler now as she focused on that instead.

The door thumped back.

Spencer lurched up, startled by the sudden noise, and yanked the door open to find Ethan standing there. “Sup, teensies,” he said, peering down at them from his gawkish height, his voice amusingly crackly. “Want to come throw rocks at the ice with me?”

“Yes,” said Emily right as Spencer replied, “We’re not allowed—what?”

“Rad.” Ethan leapt off the step, kicking a tuft of snow up into the air. “I’ll wait here, go get your shit on.”

Emily swung the door shut, turning on Spencer. “There’ll be a ton of things to balance on down at the pier. Grab your shit, let’s go!”

Spencer frowned at her. “If your mom hears you swearing, you’ll be grounded for eternity… she’s already angry that you knocked your tooth out.”

With a smirk, Emily shrugged. Like she was silly enough to get _caught_. Besides, Ethan swore and he was _fourteen_ —obviously, she was as grown up as him, at least. And he knew so many words she didn’t—but was quickly learning. “You’re just afraid you’ll _lose_.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. If she won, she’d be impossible to live with… it was almost worth getting scolded to avoid having to deal with her declaring him the loser of everything, a role that came with plenty of teasing.

“Fine,” he grumbled as he went to get his coat and boots.

 

Predictably, Emily grew bored of throwing rocks into the ice before Spencer and Ethan did, killing time by finding a nearby park bench to balance on while watching them calculate the mass:damage ratio of every rock they were throwing. Despite Ethan having been a pretty regular part of the past few weeks, she had reservations. One, he was _new._ She wasn’t sure that she liked new things, not since DC where everything was new and hateful. Two, what if Spencer liked him better than her? Then it would be _just_ like school in DC, where everyone already had their best friends sorted out and Emily was left floating from group to group, wondering if they really liked her or were just tolerating her because her mom was an ambassador and their parents had told them to…

Three, what if she left again and Spencer wasn’t even sad because he didn’t need her anymore? He had Ethan to throw rocks with him now. And Ethan seemed to know all about the hares and their tunnels and the Sparkling Ravenway, and everything they’d shared—things that were _theirs_.

A loud cheer came from the pier as the rock Ethan had found smashed right through the thin ice, both boys leaning over the railing to stare down at the water. Emily felt the anger bubbling up again, just like it did in DC where she was always angry. A sour kind of resentment that festered and twisted and made everything annoying, even things she’d normally like—like Spencer’s laugh and the hand Ethan had wrapped through Spencer’s hood, stopping him from tipping over the edge. She hated that Ethan _cared_ enough to stop him falling. That was her job!

“Stupid,” she muttered, leaping lightly from the bench and marching over there to demand her friend’s attention back onto _her_ , where it belonged, not on some brainless rock throwing.

“Let’s play dares,” she demanded when they looked at her approaching. Let her prove that she was braver and better than Ethan, even though he was bigger and knew all kinds of swearing. “Come on, Spence. You said you’d balance with me and you aren’t, and now I want to play dares.”

“But we’re…” Spencer trailed off as Ethan tugged him off the railing and back onto the pier.

“Dares are fun.” Ethan sounded excited, which only annoyed Emily more. Why was he always so happy? Didn’t he know that everything _sucked?_ “Dibs on first. Spence, I dare you to lick that fishing net over there.”

There was a loud kind of silence, Spencer going white as he looked at the frosted over net leaning against an old fishing shack, kind of green under the frost of white. Emily was a little impressed—that dare was _great._

Spencer was the very opposite of impressed. “What happens if I don’t do it?” he asked doubtfully, staring intently at the net and trying not to think about the book on water-borne pathogens he’d read recently.

“Then you’re a chicken,” Emily asked quickly, cutting over Ethan. To his credit, Ethan just shrugged and nodded. “You don’t want to be a _chicken_ , do you?”

Spencer did not want to be a chicken.

He looked at the net again.

“If I get salmonella, you have to sit by my hospital bed and weep,” he told Emily glumly, having picked up the concept of bedside weeping from some of the dingy novels he’d found in the dollar bin at the local library. People did a lot of weeping when people were sick or war-torn. “Promise?”

“We’ll both weep,” Emily promised.

“I was born to weep,” added Ethan, waggling his pinkie. “Now, lick the net, Specs.”

With great dignity, his spine straight and expression determined, Spencer channelled his inner Emily and marched right on over to the abandoned fishing net, swallowing down bile and his instantaneous gagging reflex before—very quickly—touching his tongue to the frosty rope. Ethan cheered him on as he backpedalled away, tongue still sticking out and having a very minor panic over whether he wanted to put it back in his mouth again… ever. Emily just laughed.

“Fish tongue!” she called, earning a glare from him. “I mean, sorry, Spence. You did great. What did it taste like?”

Spencer thought about that. “Cold,” he answered finally, retracting his tongue and wincing at how chewy it felt after being stuck out in the frigid air. “That was awful. You guys are awful. Can we go back to throwing rocks now?”

“No.” Emily bounced, looking from Spencer to Ethan. “You have to dare one of us now.”

Despite not really being one for revenge, Spencer saw his opening here. “Fine. In that case, I dare Ethan…” Ethan raised his eyebrows expectantly. “…to pick up _Emily.”_

Emily froze. She looked at Ethan, who looked back down at her.

“Don’t you dare,” she warned him, bristling like an angry cat. “I _bite_.”

Spencer clucked quietly.

And Ethan sprung, scooping the shrieking Emily up as she flailed and hissed, going stiff and angry in his arms with her expression baleful, torn between smacking him for picking her up and trying to smooth down her dress so it didn’t ride up her kicking legs. Just as quickly, he put her down and sprinted away with a yelp, avoiding getting kicked. “That was savage!” he yelled back, Emily hurtling after him, Spencer giggling so hard he thought maybe licking the net was worth it. “She’s going to kill me!”

Despite his penchant for exaggeration, he wasn’t that far off the mark this time.

 

Back at home, Elizabeth had been home for hours and only just noticed how strangely quiet it was. She went looking, first across the damp lawn to the lake house where she was concerned, but not overly alarmed, when no one answered her knock.

Letting herself into the quiet house was an exercise in telling herself that her concern was valid and overrode presumptions of politeness. There should be children on these grounds somewhere—children were noisy, weren’t they? Most children were, anyway. Perhaps she didn’t know her own child well enough to say.

“Diana?” she called, a clock ticking dully. “Emily? Spencer?”

No answer.

Up the stairs she crept, to find Diana’s door ajar, the bed ruffled but empty through the gap. Fear striking hard now, Elizabeth called her name again and tapped the door, watching it creak open to find Diana sitting on the floor beside the window, observing her enter.

Elizabeth paused, looking down at her. Diana said nothing, just looked back.

“Where are the children?” Elizabeth asked first, priority surmounting.

“I sent them to play in the library,” Diana answered after a beat of thought. “It would be safer in there. Plenty of books to hide behind.”

“Hide from what?”

Diana gave her look that was scornful. “The snipers. Stay out of line of sight… the windows, Liz, they’re through the windows. Not the books.”

Elizabeth took a deep, long breath, reality crashing in. This, this was what she’d feared. It was time for some hard discussions, once this episode was over. But, for now, she didn’t have to be an ambassador or a mother or a diplomat or the person who needed to decide what was best for the children they cared for.

She just had to be a friend.

“Okay,” she said, edging out of the sight of the window and going to sit beside her friend, both their backs to the wall. Diana was picking at her hand, the nails bloody from where she’d clawed the skin back. Taking those hands in hers, Elizabeth leaned close and closed her eyes. “They can’t hurt you, Diana. You know they can’t.”

“I know…”

“But I’m going to stay with you, okay?”

A nod was her answer, Diana shuffling closer and tucking her head onto her shoulder, trembling subsiding slightly as they sat in silence. Eventually, Elizabeth dragged a blanket over and wrapped it around them, watching the light on the walls play out.

“Emily is sadder than she was,” Diana said suddenly. Elizabeth winced at the truth there. “I see it in her eyes. She resents you and it poisons everything. They fight more.”

That was true. Both Spencer and Emily had tempers now that they hadn’t had before their separation, sparking up at each other erratically before returning to playing like it had never happened.

“Spencer is sadder too. Older. Do you see it in his eyes?”

“See what?” Elizabeth asked, not sure she wanted an answer. Definitely not wanting the answer she received.

“William. I look at him and see William, forced to care for me. An adult in a child’s eyes. How repulsive…”

Elizabeth said nothing. Diana kept talking.

“…I should send him away… from this.”

Elizabeth said nothing, just watched the sunlight fade.

 

Emily was on the fishing shack roof. It had originally been her dare to Ethan, who’d refused it on the grounds that it was “cold as tits up there, I’m not doing it.” He’d still, however, boosted her up to complete the dare, hovering under her as she ran easily across the shaky guttering to touch the dinky weathervane up there, smirking down at them.

“See,” she told the fretting Spencer. “I told you I was the best at balancing.”

“It’s a broad roof,” he retorted. “It being _higher_ doesn’t make it harder to balance on—just more dangerous if you fall. Now get _down_. The wood is rotten, I can hear it shifting.”

Emily rolled her eyes, but did as he said, sliding down easily and leaping nimbly from the edge into Ethan’s arms as he lowered her to the ground. If he was picking her up to do something she wanted to do, then that was totally okay, she’d decided. It was handy to have a much taller person around, sometimes. _Sometimes_. But that was as much space as she was willing to give him right now.

“Fine,” she said saucily to Spencer. “If you’re so sure, then you prove that you’re better. Here’s my dare—” She looked around for something narrow, eyes landing on the railing of the pier. “Balance on _that_.”

They all looked at the railing, slick where it was wet and iced everywhere else.

“I mean, unless you can’t.” Emily crossed her arms, that irate feeling coming back as Spencer looked from the railing to her. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you couldn’t.” She didn’t know why she was being mean to him… just that she _was_ and needed to stop, but didn’t _feel_ like stopping.

“I don’t—” Ethan began, but Spencer was already walking away.

“I can do _anything_ you can,” he snapped back at Emily, who scowled.

 

They heard the scream from the lake house, Elizabeth jerking awake and wondering if she’d dreamed it. Diana had no such qualms, leaping up and bolting from the room, moving faster than Elizabeth had ever seen her move as she burst out the front door and took off across the lawn with her bathrobe flapping in the wind. Elizabeth chased after, still not entirely sure what she’d heard—but her stomach dropping when she saw Garett running from his shed and down towards the lake, and the scream, as well. By the time Elizabeth managed to reach the pier where the small group was gathered, she was puffing and breathless, heart hammering fast in her chest right up until she realised that one of the small figures down there was _Emily._

For the longest beat of time, she saw Emily on the ground and forgot how to breathe, stopping and pressing her hand to her chest as it gave the strangest galloping thump of her life, leaving her dizzy and sore. Then, the dark-haired head of her daughter lifted, looking over at her, and her heart returned to beating. She was moving. She was alive.

The next kick was realising that Spencer wasn’t moving much at all.

“What happened?” she called, jogging the last stretch to them. They were on the shore of the lake, drag marks from the shattered ice showing where something—Spencer, she could tell instantly—had been pulled from the lake after plunging in. And he was staring blankly at her, his expression completely dumbfounded, his clothes wet from the shallow water. Another boy stood nearby, his clothes equally as wet, shaking so hard that Elizabeth could practically see water vibrating from his skin.

“He was balancing,” the boy stammered. Not just cold, she realised, but panicking too, his lips turning blue as he hyperventilated slightly. “And he slipped, caught his leg, his leg, oh man. I tried to catch him but I think I made it _worse_.”

Elizabeth looked at his leg, and calm settled. “Garett,” she said sharply, catching the man’s attention as he helped untwist Spencer’s trousers from what was definitely no longer a straight leg. Diana worked his shoe and sock off despite the fact that feeling was beginning to return, Spencer mewling with stunned pain. “Get up to the house and call an ambulance.”

“All due respect, ma’am,” he replied, looking up at her. “But I think I’d be better off getting a make-shift splint on him and getting him in front of the fire to wait for the ambulance—he’s freezing. And I can carry him easier than you or Miss Diana, no offence.”

Diana was calming Spencer down as he quickly snapped back to reality, looking down at his leg and beginning to whimper. Elizabeth glanced at Emily, seeing her face turning greenish, her eyes wide and tears beginning to run down her face.

“Very well,” she said. “Emily, with me, now. We’re going to call an ambulance.”

Without waiting for a response, she turned and ran back up the path, hearing small feet following as Emily obeyed without question. It was midway through talking to the dispatcher that Elizabeth realised that Emily was still lingering close, watching without saying a word. Not missing a beat in giving their address, Elizabeth turned and looked down at her daughter, noting her pale face and worried eyes and the way she was biting at her nails again, a habit they’d been working on and hadn’t quite broken. Instead of scolding, Elizabeth thought about how it felt to see Diana fading, and thought how it must have felt to see Spencer fall, and she held out her arm for her daughter to hurtle into, face buried in Elizabeth’s stomach and crying softly.

“Are you still there, ma’am?” asked the dispatcher.

“Yes, of course,” Elizabeth replied, hugging Emily close as she continued the call.

 

Spencer was a quiet bundle of blankets in front of the fire, only his face and the barest tuft of hair poking out the top of the expert swaddling. Diana was seated beside him, dangerously quiet as she wrestled with her brain in order to stay focused on this moment.

“Ambulance will be here in two minutes,” Elizabeth told them, suddenly noticing Ethan standing awkwardly by the bookshelf. “Who are you?”

“Ethan,” said Ethan. “Hi.”

Elizabeth stared at him.

“Are you sure he didn’t hit his head on the way down?” Diana asked Emily, who was hunkered on Spencer’s other side with her hand under the blanket gripping his tightly. “You’re not in trouble, sweetheart. We just need to know for the doctors.”

“I didn’t see him,” Emily whispered, watching as Diana nodded and stood at a loud knock. As soon as their moms left the room to guide the paramedics through, she turned her attention to her friend. “I’m sorry, Spence, I’m sorry—”

“S’alright,” Spencer mumbled, leaning his head on her arm. He _hurt_. “Shouldn’t have done it. Was dumb.”

“And now you get to go to hospital _naked_ ,” Ethan added, who thought that that was honestly the coolest thing about today. How often did you get to go out in public naked? Not often enough, as far as he was concerned. “That’s so rad.”

Spencer wasn’t even going to _begin_ asking about why that was the coolest part of this for Ethan. That was a ball of weird he hurt far too much to unpack. But they were interrupted by the paramedics filing in with their stretcher, Spencer going grey at the sight of them.

“Emily, away so they can get him up,” Elizabeth ordered. Emily scowled, unmoving. “ _Emily_.”

“It’s okay,” Spencer told her, pulling his hand away. “I’ll see you at the hospital, okay?”

They both looked to Elizabeth, who nodded. “Garett is going to bring you and Diana.” Spencer’s eyes widened as he heard that and realised that his mom wasn’t going in the ambulance with him, turning to stare at her with panic across every feature. “I’m going with Spencer.”

It was Spencer’s turn to stare at her, confusion setting in. Diana, who would have given anything to be able to get in that ambulance beside her son if not for the lies her brain was telling her about it and the uniformed men who rode within it too, looked away from that face, her own eyes burning at this failure.

“You’ll be okay,” Elizabeth said, walking alongside him as they wheeled him out. Somehow, her patting his shoulder wasn’t quite as comforting as it could have been, Spencer watching longingly as Emily and his mom vanished from sight. “Would you like me to, uh, hold your hand?”

“No thank you,” Spencer mumbled, closing his eyes and ignoring everything. “I’m fine.”

He had to be.


	25. Fleas and Thank You

In the time following the honestly rather unsurprising outcome of Spencer breaking his leg, Emily took it upon herself to improve his lot. And, by this, she decided that it was one hundred percent her duty as his best and most wonderful friend—which she still was, she hoped, despite being somewhat kind of a little bit responsible for the accident—to entertain him while he was stuck in bed ‘convalescing’, as Diana termed it. Thus far, she was doing an admirable job, by her standards, anyway. Spencer had everything one needed to stay in bed for a week and a half: that was, he had every pillow she’d been able to drag up there piled around him so high that sometimes he quite vanished under the lot of them, all of her dolls assembled around him complete with outfits in case he decided to dress them, every pencil and colouring book she owned, enough puzzles that she hadn’t actually been able to fit all the boxes on the bed and had had to improvise to get them there, and even her little TV set and VCR player had been brought up here. Emily had decided that, much like she’d promised, she couldn’t possibly leave him while he was in such a dreadfully weak state, and so she’d also brought her own bedding and made a nest on the floor beside him.

“I’m not really sure this was a good idea,” Spencer was saying at this moment, as he peered into the pillow case that Emily had dumped all the puzzle pieces into in order to get them up there without the troublesome boxes taking up space. “How many jigsaws are in here?”

“Oh, all the ones I could find. About twelve? I think it makes it a _challenge_.”

Spencer, his leg aching under the mountain of pillows stacked around it and under it and over it and, well, everywhere, wasn’t really sure that he was up for any more of Emily’s challenges, even though she’d apologised over and over again for the terrible dare. He nodded agreeably, asking her to rewind one of the movies she’d picked out from the rental shop for them to watch.

“Which one?” Emily asked, diving into the pile of glossy VHS tape covers and reading out their titles; while she was distracted, Spencer hurriedly let the pillow case of assorted puzzle pieces slide down the edge of his bed to lurk under there instead of up here, where they were in danger of needing to be solved. “We’ve got _The Muppet Movie_ , for the eighty-billionth time, _Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Pete’s Dragon, 20,000 Leagues,_ um, _Alien?_ What’s _Alien_?”

Spencer perked up. “Oooh, can I see?” He studied the case, turning it over and grinning at it. “Hey, this looks _scary_. How come they let you borrow this?”

Emily didn’t _remember_ picking that one out. “It does look scary,” she said doubtfully. “I’ve never watched a scary movie before.”

“Oh, you’ll love it,” Spencer said, without any idea of what he was about to do to her. “Put this one on—it’s almost dark, it’ll be terrifying.”

Emily, although hesitant, did as asked. After all, she did owe him. And whatever Spencer wanted right now, she was going to give him.

 

“That might have been a mistake,” Spencer told Diana lately as they tried to coax the sobbing Emily out from under her blankets. “Sorry, Mom.”

Diana just sighed, patting the blanket-covered lump as she tried to reassure the girl that, no, there was nothing living inside her waiting to burst out, no matter how excitedly Spencer had discussed the possibility. The only response she got was a shrieked, “It’s in my belly!” and the further bundling of the ball into the blankets, tightly enough that she began to worry that Emily was running out of oxygen in there—a rather excessive way to defeat the imagined alien, and one Elizabeth was very unlikely to approve of.

“I knew you would bring doom upon the household,” Diana told the VCR player after, as she removed the offending machine from Spencer’s room—at Emily’s request, as she’d become quite convinced it would turn on in the night and release the aliens into the room where they slept. “I told Elizabeth you were a mistake.”

The VCR player, being a machine, didn’t reply.

 

Emily’s next bright idea was that what Spencer clearly needed was something to cuddle. Her dolls weren’t up to the task, since it was cold outside and she figured something warm would go over much better. That left her, but she didn’t really want to cuddle with a _boy_ , gross, especially not one that was all wonky and easily broken. There was also Ethan but, after some consideration and mental mathematics, Emily decided that he was definitely much too long to be any good at cuddling, and also full of elbows that were liable to bump all Spencer’s broken bits—which they’d been told was Bad and not to do at all, ever, on pain of breaking him further.

Therefore, as she realised, there was only one creature in the world who could give Spencer his much needed cuddles: Baltharog.

Baltharog, being very much a wild-except-sometimes-tame-for-biscuits hare, would prove to be antagonistic towards this plan. Despite this, Emily wasn’t one to be beaten at her own game, especially not by a long-eared weirdo like Balthy. With the liberal application of biscuits and a fruit bun that she gracefully gifted to the cause, soon Emily had lured the wary hare into the lake house and up the narrow flight of stairs, tossing the rest of the bun into the room and then quickly shutting the door as Balthy chased it.

On the other side of the door, the three of them looked at each other: Emily triumphant, Spencer surprised, and Balthy with narrowed eyes and a mouthful of bun.

“I figured you could cuddle her,” Emily told Spencer cheerfully, pointing to the bed. “Balthy, up.”

Balthy tapped her hind foot on the floor, looking around for an exit. She saw the closet.

She recognised the closet.

And all hell broke loose.

Two hours later, as Emily cleaned up the broken ceramic from Spencer’s mug and righted his tossed about books, Balthy had finally worn herself out and flopped down next to Spencer while making angry grumbling noises, whiskers twitching fretfully. Spencer, who’d been entirely unable to help Emily stop Balthy from breaking everything, just petted his hare and tried not to laugh at Emily’s face.

“Well, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea bringing her inside,” he suggested gently. “Although it’s cool to see her up so close when her fur is white like this, we don’t normally get to see it during winter without her hiding. But still…”

“Nonsense,” was Emily’s reply. “You’re getting cuddles, right? So it was a _great_ idea.”

That notion lasted until the next day, when they woke up and found that, at some point during the night, Balthy had eaten her way out of the room and gone adventuring somewhere else in the house. Diana would later find her napping in a laundry hamper, carrying her gently outside and releasing her back to her family, unharmed except for a stray sock looped around her ear that Garett would later find in the hare house and puzzle over. But, at the time of waking, finding Balthy came second to the realisation that Emily hadn’t just invited their hare in for cuddles: both children were liberally covered in painful, red spots.

“Fleas,” the doctor that was summoned immediately informed them. “You’ll have to delouse the entire room—and he’ll need a new cast.”

“Oh _no_ ,” whined Spencer, trying desperately to itch inside his cast with the end of a coloured pencil.

“Sorry,” whispered Emily, handing him a wire coat hanger instead along with her most contrite of smiles.

 

A new rule about hares was added to the whiteboard on Spencer’s wall, the one that now read:

**No horror movies.**

**No hares.**

**ABSOLUTELY NO BALANCING.**

The last one was underlined twice, as if the crushing boredom of missing the last few days of their holidays before school term began again wasn’t enough. Even the news that Emily would be _staying_ for the school term wasn’t enough to cheer them up, especially since Spencer wasn’t being allowed to return until his leg was better enough that he could wear a walking cast along with his clunky crutches.

And the days were miserable because of this, until Ethan arrived on their doorstep.

“I bought a puzzle for you,” was the first thing he said, bouncing into the room, all knees and elbows and silly hair, and beaming at Spencer as he tossed him a brightly coloured cube. “It’s a rubrics cube, you—oh.”

While he’d been talking, Spencer had flicked the puzzle into place, handing it back completed and slouching further into his pillow fort.

“They’re going to chop up your brain for science,” Emily said from behind the conspiracy theory book she was reading.

“That’s alright, he’s got brains to spare,” Ethan said cheerfully, throwing the rubrics cube into the laundry basket and bouncing over to the bed. Both children tensed with anticipation of a bumped leg, but Ethan patted the pillows gently before finding a spot that wouldn’t batter his much smaller friend around. “What are you doing?”

“Dying of boredom,” said Emily.

“Slowly oxidising,” Spencer added glumly. “I’m going to get bedsores.”

Emily reappeared above her book, eyes wide. “Can I _see?”_ she asked with an obscene amount of interest in her voice. “What do bedsores look like? Are they super gross?”

“I don’t know.” Spencer dragged a pillow over his head, wondering if he could accidentally suffocate so he wasn’t bored anymore. “Go see if you can find a medical dictionary, sometimes they’ve got pictures.”

Emily was gone in moments, abandoning her book in favour of grossness. Spencer shook his head, really not understanding how _bedsores_ were fascinating to her, but the xenomorph from _Alien_ still made her cry at night about things being inside her. Weirdo.

“Hey, Spence?” Ethan asked as Emily’s footsteps faded down the stairs and the front door banged open, Diana calling out, “Gentle!” as she went.

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

Spencer popped out of the pillows, trying to move around and wincing as his leg dragged a bit. He was stiff and sore and bored, and didn’t really like the look on Ethan’s face right now much at all. “I guess?” he said finally, wary of how Ethan _wasn’t_ smiling right now.

Ethan took a breath, fiddling with the edge of Spencer’s bedcovers and the sparkles that made up the owl-shaped face of one of Emily’s pillows, before speaking. “When that happened,” he began, pointing to Spencer’s leg. “Your mom…”

Oh.

Oh no.

Spencer wished he could curl up and ignore this question, steeling himself for it.

“Is she okay?”

Oh, how he wished Emily would appear right now with a book filled with the most _grotesque_ bedsores in the history of the known universe, but he wasn’t that lucky.

“She’s not well,” Spencer hedged finally, not wanting to go into details. “She’s scared of hospitals.”

“Is that why she didn’t go with you?”

Spencer nodded, feeling his face go hot. “But she’s okay now,” he said quickly, because she was. In the days following his accident, she’d quickly come back to herself, like the episode hadn’t happened at all—he had his _mom_ back, even if she was acting sad because she hadn’t been there when he needed her. Which, as he kept telling her, was _fine_. He hadn’t really needed her—Elizabeth had been there for a bit and then, after that, he’d been just fine on his own. The nurses were really nice, and the hospital was never dark. “So it doesn’t matter.”

“I guess.” Ethan squeezed the owl pillow, watching its beak open and close in response. “But if your mom didn’t go, who stayed with you that night? I’ve never stayed in hospital alone.”

“It wasn’t so bad…” Spencer was blushing again, but this time it was because Ethan was looking at him with a kind of awe on his face, like Spencer had done something really cool. “They wouldn’t let Emily stay—she asked.”

“You’re so brave, kid,” Ethan said finally, shuffling up a bit and ruffling his hair. “I wish I had half your guts.”

That was a strange, but thrilling, thing for Ethan to say—Spencer never _felt_ brave. Despite how strange it was, it was also exciting and, when Emily finally returned, he was still grinning widely.

“I couldn’t find pictures,” she announced, walking in and scowling in their general directions. “Books _suck_. Everything sucks. Everything is _lame_.”

“Oh, well, I know some super gross stories, if you want,” Ethan said, turning around to smile at Emily. “It’ll be like a campfire, we can tell stories to see who gets grossed out or scared first.”

“It _won’t_ be me,” Emily said, reclaiming her spot on the floor.

Spencer said nothing, just looked at the whiteboard and frowned. Scary stories weren’t the same as horror movies, right?

Surely, they’d be fine?

 

The whiteboard had been updated: **No scary stories, fables, tales, or allegories.**

“Sorry, Emily,” Ethan told her guiltily as they sat around the kitchen table—every light in the house on and Diana heating milk to help her calm down.

And Emily said nothing, just hiccupped wetly and stared in absolute horror at the basement door, sure that the world was so much more terrifying than she’d _ever_ imagined.

 

On their last day before school, they were drawing. At first, Emily had been absently doodling on Spencer’s cast, trying to make it look like a ton of different people had written all over it, instead of just her and Ethan and a small block of poetry near the knee in Diana’s handwriting. But, as Spencer kept reading out loud from their battered copy of _Watership Down_ , her doodling became more pointed. Emily wondered what happened to Fiver between the battle for Watership and the epilogue, because such a wonderful hare couldn’t possibly have just done _nothing_. Maybe, just maybe, he’d gone on his own adventures… and she began to draw a skinny, twitchy rabbit leaving the Down, his family spotted behind him. Down the calf he went, meeting a frog and a mouse and not really liking any of them, because they didn’t understand him, until she thought that he looked a bit lonely, ambling across to the other side of the leg. She added a bird, a blackbird with a wild crest of feathers, and put them on a boat just like the ones on Spencer’s Italian books.

Spencer had stopped reading, watching her with interest.

“It’s Fiver,” she explained, pointing to him at the helm. “He’s a seafaring captain, and she’s his first mate, Blackbird.”

“Put her in the crow’s nest,” Spencer suggested, trying to lean down to see. “Like that, yeah, and with a spyglass. She has the keenest eyes in all the world, so keen that no matter how far they go from Watership, she can still look back there and tell Fiver that Hazel is doing okay.”

Emily added the spyglass, and a patch in case they decided to become pirates. Then, a kraken attacked, talking up the rest of the leg side of Spencer’s leg. After some debate, they managed to lever him up just enough that the battle could be completely along the back of his leg, a cannonball almost knocking Fiver clean into Spencer’s knee. They were separated—and out of room.

“Hmm,” said Emily, before grabbing the marker and knocking the pillows from the bed, crawling up next to Spencer and drawing Fiver on the wall. “Here, look—you’re hurt.”

“Oh no,” said Spencer, who was worried for a heartbeat about drawing on the wall until he realised that, if they didn’t, Fiver and Blackbird would _never_ get home. “What happens next?”

“Well,” said Emily. “They travelled for years and years, looking for one another, until in a desert land one day Fiver found a magic carpet that took him to her. And she was locked in a cave shaped like a tiger and he had to find the magic tooth to get her out, like this…”

Diana, when she discovered the story played out in eight parts later that night, wasn’t even mad at all. “You’re both _fantastic_ ,” she told them proudly, finding her own seat by the bed. “Do tell me, what’s the name of that splendid ship? And who is this character, with the rubrics cube—is this Bigwig?”

“Yeah!” Spencer answered, almost bouncing his leg. “He’s Ethan!”

And no one ever did tell Elizabeth about the story on the bedroom wall, not even Diana. After all, it was worth it.

For that day, no one was bored or sad… and no one got fleas.


	26. Spencer’s Strange Days Out

It was midway through March when things turned strange. Until then, everything had been wonderful. School was everything either child had wanted over the last miserable term; they were together, not lonely, and Emily was catching up faster than ever. Grade six, Emily was finding, was easy with Spencer there to help explain things in the special way he had, making it sound really complicated but also kind of easy all at once. Grade eight, Spencer was finding, was a lot more fun with Emily by his side, and Ethan too. Diana stayed okay. Elizabeth was mostly absent but, when she was there, she didn’t loom and stifle their fun. Extra lessons outside of school lessened, and they had all the time in the world to play.

Until March.

Elizabeth flew back from DC where she’d spent the last week, announcing that she was taking them out shopping tomorrow. _Them,_ not just Emily, which was _new._ Occasionally, usually precluding some new function or formality, Emily would be dragged out by someone hired to do so in order to dress her appropriately, reappearing with some new outfit that she inevitably hated despite her apparent interest in her appearance—Spencer didn’t really understand why she liked pretty things while hating being dressed pretty. But tomorrow, Elizabeth was taking _them,_ and Spencer was to go. No further questions were answered, by Elizabeth _or_ Diana, and the two children were duly sent to bed to wonder what had changed. They’d continued wondering this for quite some time, because neither mother was eager to talk about what was coming.

The day of the shopping trip dawned. Diana was strangely quiet as she helped Spencer pick out his clothes—also unusual. Spencer, who wasn’t used to being told what to wear, lingered by his dresser and just watched as Diana slid shirt after shirt from the closet, running her hands slowly over worn cotton blends.

“I do my best,” she whispered to one of the shirts, before picking out the one that Spencer only wore to visit Grandma—his _best_ —and instructing him to be careful not to crease it. Pressed trousers to match and the tight dress shoes that pinched, Spencer even tolerated without complaint her wetting his hair and combing it down fiercely into an uncharacteristic neatness. And Diana told him, as she walked him up to the big house, “Look at you. You’re so handsome and grown today, your father wouldn’t even recognise you.”

Spencer didn’t feel handsome and grown. He felt a little bit like maybe his mom was ashamed of his clothes that weren’t _shoddy_ , but they also weren’t…

Well, they weren’t what Emily was wearing when they walked in the door, sitting at the table with her arms crossed and her mouth in a furious downturn. Her dress was pink and silky and bound tight around her waist with a bow Spencer knew she hated, her white stockings spotless and leading to a pair of white sandals that he could tell were pinching worse than his. Even her hair was tied up as tight as the rest of her, in a bun set high on her head with pins jabbed through. She looked older than her ten years, and angrier than any child should need to be. Spencer sat next to her, looking at the necklace she was wearing that was definitely real and the bracelets that hung heavy on her skinny wrist, thinking that maybe just those alone were worth more than everything he wore.

He wondered what he was worth, when sat like this next to her, or his mother standing next to Elizabeth as though to contrast how tired and threadbare she looked compared to Elizabeth’s polished shine. A small part of him remembered wondering this when he’d met her, the worth of a girl versus a boy versus a hare.

He missed being that small and sure that they were worth just as much as each other.

“Come along, we’re going to be late,” Elizabeth instructed, and, like ducklings, they filed out after her; both of them quiet as they waited to see what the day would bring.

As it turned out, what it brought was exactly what had been promised: shopping. Shopping, Spencer discovered, was just as awful as Emily had always professed it to be. The first stores they visited were filled with endless rows of little girls’ clothing, none of it the kind of stuff Spencer had ever seen the girls at school wearing. Jackets with fur and long dresses and strappy shoes and bags and _endless_ sparkly shawls. Within three hours, his feet were sore and he was bored out of his mind, standing quietly by as Emily was sent into a dressing room with an armful of dresses to appear, one by one, and stand in front of Elizabeth looking doleful. Only once did she brighten, by a display that was more spiky and black than pretty and pink, although Elizabeth quickly pulled her away.

“Arms straight, turn, stand straight,” Elizabeth told her, Emily obeying with only one bored glance at Spencer. The shop assistant hovered, pointing out where Emily was beginning to outgrow the sizes she was trying on. Elizabeth noted that, Emily raising her arms as they poked at the seams before finally announcing that she would need most of her clothes replaced if she was to avoid outgrowing them throughout the year. “I can’t have you looking like I don’t know how to dress you,” Elizabeth commented in a voice like she thought she was making a joke, but none of them smiled. This meant that three hours became five.

When Emily came to stand next to Spencer after, it was a shock for him to keep this in mind as he realised that he had to look _up_ to her—when had she gotten taller than him?! It was a small, quiet part of him, but that small, quiet part _really_ hoped it wouldn’t last. He wasn’t sure he could handle a lifetime of her looming…

It was also a shock for Spencer, who’d been quietly following and listening and learning about tucks and hems and thread counts and fashions, to follow Elizabeth into the next store and find it filled with something very different from the last eight. Gone were the wild colours and pinks and silks and glittery shawls. Instead, there were rows of neat shirt and trouser combos, sensible woollen sweaters that were impossibly soft to the touch, and whole displays of ties and belts.

He didn’t… hate any of it? Unlike Emily who winced at every store, Spencer looked around at this and felt… comfortable. Like if he was wearing it, people would look past how skinny and weird he was. Like it was something he could hide behind, when Emily never wanted to use her outfits to hide—she wanted them to _be_ her. He just wanted to be normal.

“Spencer, here,” Elizabeth commanded. Spencer felt his belly sink low, looking up like a deer in the headlights to find both Elizabeth and the new shop assistant, a severe looking man with a tape measure, looking at him. “Now, please.”

“Hah,” murmured Emily, hiding her smile at not being the one being poked at.

“Why?” whispered Spencer, but he wasn’t answered. Elizabeth hadn’t seemed to hear him, instead gripping her shoulders in her hands and steering him in front of the tall mirrors, straightening his limbs like he was one of Emily’s dolls and instructing him to tilt his chin up. He did, examining himself in the mirror and being quietly disillusioned by what he saw: just a skinny, weird kid completely out of place next to the woman beside him and the clothes around him.

“How old did you say he was?” asked the man, peering down his nose at Spencer, who had to fight the urge to look at his shoes. “Ah, ten. Well, he looks like the sort to suddenly grow, judging by those legs.” Spencer and Emily both looked down at his legs, puzzled, Spencer being told off for dropping his chin. Emily looked suspicious. Spencer hoped the man was right. The man continued: “The thin, whippy sort, but awkward. He’ll be awkward before he’s grown, you can tell. We can work with that. Classic styles, I think, that will suit him.”

“I—” tried Spencer, wanting to say that no thanks, he was okay just being him in his third-hand sweater thanks, not being classic if that meant having to be poked and touched and have people buy him things he suspected were very expensive, but Elizabeth tutted her tongue. He closed his mouth, swallowed, and tried not to panic at the touch of the man’s businesslike hands as he measured him without even pausing to say, “How do you do?”

Emily, who was watching with more than a modicum of sympathy, was more than a little curious why Spencer was having to get dressed up all fancy too. This was her misery to bear, not his—he got to wear his comfy old wonderful clothes, not tight, horrible things like she did. Except, not anymore apparently, as he was measured up and put into stiffly collared shirts and trousers that weren’t as comfy as his old ones. Was Spencer going to come to the adult things with her now too and be just as bored sitting around pretending? That would be nice—pretending was fun when it was two instead of one.

When Spencer was finally released from his torment, let back into his usual clothes and sent to stand by Emily while Elizabeth discussed alterations, he found her watching him carefully.

“At least you get to wear pants,” she said finally, nudging her shoulder against his. He noted with a small amount of relief that a single curl was beginning to slip loose from her tight bun, making her look just that little bit more like herself.

“I guess.” Fiddling with his glasses in his hands before shoving them back on his nose, he looked around. “The vests were kind of nice too… I liked those. I wish I could wear a pocket-watch like that guy. That would be _awesome._ ”

“See, it’s not all bad,” Elizabeth said, having heard him. “Appearances matter, always. Now, come along.”

Despite the boxes and bags she had sent back to the car, she didn’t pause to wait for Spencer to thank her for buying him the clothes and, after trying several times, he gave up. Maybe she didn’t want thanks? Even though he was sure that that was what he was supposed to do when given a very expensive gift.

He just didn’t understand her.

 

The rest of the day passed just as strangely. They were taken for haircuts and then treated to lunch, Elizabeth startling Emily over her soup as she asked her if she’d like to have her ears pierced. Emily, frozen with her spoon in the air, looked torn between excited and uneasy.

“I did say when you were ten you’d be allowed,” Elizabeth added, watching her daughter carefully.

Emily wasn’t sure. It had never been something she’d asked for—some of the girls at school had their ears pierced and they sure were pretty, but it also looked like it would _hurt_. But it was one of Those Things that girls had done, and she suspected she wasn’t being given as much of a choice as it seemed.

“Do I have to?” she pressed carefully, testing the waters. Spencer just watched them, looking tired and stressed—Emily guessed he was being weird about the clothes, because he wasn’t used to it. He’d get used to it soon enough, if Emily’s guess about him coming to functions was correct. After all, Elizabeth’s favourite thing was showing off her pretty daughter and how effective a mother she was. Maybe she’d decided to show him off too. There was a lot to display.

“Of course not,” replied Elizabeth. “But it is a very grown up thing to do.”

_Time to be grown up_ , that said without outright saying, and Emily put her spoon down, not hungry anymore. “I guess…”

In the end, it didn’t hurt that much. She did make Spencer hold her hand the whole way through though, and begged her mom for a good ten minutes to get the earrings with the rabbits on them as well as the boring studs she had to wear to begin with. Although she wasn’t allowed the ones with skulls, or to get a whole _row_ of studs up her ear like the cool girl on the poster on the wall, both very disappointing things that Emily sulked over. The talk on how to avoid infection was scarily long but Spencer sat there transfixed the whole time, the little manual on his lap, and Emily was pretty sure she was in safe hands—even as she began to poke and prod and twist at the studs, ignoring how much it twinged in favour of how cool it was to feel them move.

After that, the day finally ended. They went home, tired and just as confused as they’d begun. Spencer sat on the couch after, curled up in his most comfy pair of pyjamas watching his mom pick through the bags that had been sent home with him, pausing over every shirt and belt.

“Why?” he asked his mom, hoping she, of all people, would answer him. “Why did she buy me all this?”

But Diana didn’t answer, just commented on how handsome he’d look in his new clothes.

 

Two weeks later, Elizabeth hosted a dinner. Spencer was instructed to attend; Diana wasn’t there.

It was utterly terrifying.

He was shown to his seat beside Emily, in the big dining room they didn’t usually use. On the table in front of him was what looked to be _every_ kind of fork; fortunately for him, since the first time he’d been puzzled by excessive cutlery, he’d done research on the subject and knew the approximate use for every item. Both he and Emily were dressed in their nicest clothes and given a long list of things to not do when the guests began to arrive.

When the guests arrived, Spencer found that one of the things they _were_ to do was to greet them. He only slipped up twice, finding that it was easier just to follow Emily’s lead as she curtseyed and greeted each new guest, earning a range of, “Oh, how lovely,” responses from them. Spencer almost curtseyed the first time, so focused he was on what Emily was doing, only managing to adjust it into a bow that Emily stared at him when he completed by elbowing a pot plant.

“Not like _that_ ,” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth. “They’re not _royalty,_ or Japanese—just shake their hands.”

“Why don’t you have to shake their hands?” he hissed back, lurching forward to shake the next person’s hand so violently that he ran right into their palm, knocking his glasses loose. Emily was too busy choking back laughter to answer.

He was introduced to everyone as ‘Emily’s friend’ and they seemed fascinated by him, especially once enough questions had been directed his way for him to begin talking about his studies.

“A little genius, how interesting,” someone remarked.

“How handy!” said another. “He must be such a good influence on Emily, although she hardly needs it, the precious thing.”

Emily beamed back at that person, the kind of smile that Spencer knew was fake and usually preceded her trying to kick something. But it seemed to work in this situation. “They don’t _actually_ care if you’re happy to see them,” she whispered to him over their entrees. “Just smile anyway, it’s what they want to see. You’ll learn.”

Spencer wasn’t sure he wanted to.

By the main course, people were mostly ignoring them in favour of chattering amongst one another. Elizabeth was deep in conversation with two men who spoke French, their partners looking politely bored. For a little bit, Emily whisper-translated for him, until she got bored by that and began ad-libbing their dialogue.

“What does your mom actually do?” Spencer whisper-asked Emily when he began to feel like her ad-libbing was getting a little _too_ enthusiastic.

“Talks a lot,” was Emily’s quick response as she hid her olives in her napkin with practised ease. Spencer, who’d made the mistake of eating one, tried not to gag and failed miserably, the woman beside him looking down at him with concern. Emily kept talking as he smiled up at the lady, eyes watering, and then grabbed his glass of water to chug it down as soon as she looked away. “Hosts dinners, goes to parties, does politics. I don’t know, it’s all stupid. Sometimes, she does paperwork and then yells at people on the phone until she gets bored with that and flies over there to yell at them in person. Also, we travel, because she has to yell at people all around the world too, not just in America. Don’t swallow, spit.”

A napkin was passed to him, but too late. He’d already swallowed and was pretty sure the only thing he’d ever be able to taste again was _olive_. Emily sighed, rolled her eyes fondly at him, and then magicked the rest of his olives into the same napkin, instructing him to slip it into his pocket and _not_ to squash it.

It wasn’t all bad. They had crème brûlée for dessert, which was _amazing_ , and Emily seemed cheerful enough throughout the whole thing, beginning a game with him in whispers where they guessed the secrets of the dressed-up people around the dinner table. When it was over, they didn’t have to help clean up and Elizabeth turned to them as the last guest left.

“You both did splendidly,” she told them.

Spencer carried that compliment close for the rest of the night, like it was something treasured and rare.

Emily, although she’d never admit it, felt very much the same.

But when Spencer went to bed that night, glad to be out of the fancy clothes and having disposed of the olives in the trash, he didn’t give his usual answer—to rattle off in explicit detail—his mom asking him about his day and about the dinner. It didn’t feel right. Much like the clothes, it felt like something he’d been given that he shouldn’t be; and he didn’t want to see his mom looking sad again.

“It was boring,” he told her, not mentioning the fascinating conversation about geopolitics he’d eavesdropped on or the whisper game with Emily or hiding the olives. “I’m glad I don’t have to do that all the time.

Diana laughed. “Aren’t we all?”

 

The following Saturday was going to be an exhilarating day—Ethan was going to bring over his Walkman, which had _two_ headphone jacks, so they could listen _together_. Spencer was ridiculously excited, babbling about it to his mom all morning as he talked about all the music Ethan wanted to show him.

But there was a knock at the door and, when he answered it, it wasn’t Ethan. Instead of the promised music and fun, it was Elizabeth. “May I borrow Spencer for the day?” she asked.

Before Spencer knew it, he’d been dressed and turfed out with Elizabeth, and now here they were. Without Emily and without his mom, trudging through Woodland Park Zoo in the middle of Seattle, wondering why he was here with this woman he didn’t really know.

Elizabeth was feeling almost as miserable as he was, sneaking glances at him at every exhibit they paused outside, hoping to see some spark of interest on his fixed features. But the neurotic misery remained, his eyes darting about like he was thinking of running, and he just shook his head mutely every time she asked him if he’d like lunch or an ice cream.

Annoyance sparked. This was _fun._ Children loved zoos, and he was a child. Why wasn’t he having fun?

She gave up, instead guiding him to a quieter exhibit—bobos, said the sign—and sitting him on the bench as they watched the monkeys do monkey things within the glass. “So, Spencer,” she began, wondering what on earth she was supposed to talk to this child about. The same things she talked to Emily about, she guessed. “Are you enjoying your studies?”

He glanced at her, confusion on his face. “Yeee…ss?”

“Excellent. That’s good. Education is the surest step to a bright future. And what do you hope to do with yourself in the future?”

He blinked at her, before answering. “I don’t… maybe become a medical researcher. I… maybe.”

“High aspirations, that’s promising. What college? You should start looking at improving yourself, perhaps another language… yes, that would look good, I may see about that.” She stopped, realising Spencer wasn’t really looking at her anymore. Wasn’t this how she talked to Emily? About the important things, her study and her future?

But Spencer wasn’t Emily.

“What would you like to research?” Elizabeth asked weakly, beginning to suspect that this had been a mistake, that this whole idea was defunct. It would never work, it couldn’t, no matter how bright or promising it was—

“I think maybe I’ll cure schizophrenia,” said the child beside her, looking up at her with the exact eyes Diana had described the day he’d broken his leg. Too old in a too young face. “By twenty-five, or maybe thirty, if I get lazy, but I _will_ cure it.” His mouth set in a stubborn line, his hands bunching a bit in his lap.

In that moment, Elizabeth believed that, if anyone were to do it, it would probably be this boy.

They got home that day on slightly better ground than when they’d left, even talking a little on the ride home about the books Elizabeth had bought him all those years ago. It was a beginning, a small one, for both of them.

But when Spencer crept through his silent house, he found Emily sitting in his room, knees to her chest and chalk-white.

“I know why she’s doing this,” Emily said.

Spencer swallowed hard and closed the door.

 

They were leaving. Not for a term. Not even two terms, or _three_.

“London,” said Emily, showing him the paperwork she’d stolen from her mother’s office while they were at the zoo.

Three years. They were leaving in September.

Spencer wouldn’t see her again until they were _fourteen._

He stared at the paperwork, realising he was crying even as Emily raged around his room, ranting about how much she hated her mother, her mother’s job, how they’d tried to _hide_ this. “No wonder she’s spoiling you!” Emily snarled. “She doesn’t want to feel bad that she’s _tearing_ us _apart!_ That _bitch_. Well, we’ll show her. We’ll show _her_ , won’t we, Spence?”

Spencer looked up at her, unsure just what that involved. Probably more luggage being thrown out of windows.

“We’ll _run away_ ,” Emily declared, pointing to the mural on the wall. “Just like Fiver and Blackbird—they’ll never find us!”

“No,” said Spencer blankly. He couldn’t do that. His mom needed him—and just like that, he was angry at her and at life and at never getting a break. “Just, no… grow _up,_ Emily. This how it’s always going to be. We just get a little bit of time and then things get bad again…”

Just like his mom.

Emily said nothing, just stared at him with betrayal written on every line of her face, before she turned and stormed out. The door banged shut behind her, the front door following shortly after, and Spencer didn’t go after her.

What was the point?

 

That evening, he couldn’t focus for feeling guilty. He shouldn’t have snapped at her—they should be treasuring every single moment they had together, not squandering them. He decided; he’d go to her bedroom and apologise before dinner. That’s what he’d do, and then they’d talk about what would happen in September, and beyond.

But when he got to her room, he found it empty, the bed untouched. The dolls were gone, so was Emily’s backpack, and there was nothing there except a drawing on her pillow addressed to ‘Fiver’.

“Oh no,” he told the letter, knowing that she was gone, and it was all his fault.

He had to go after her.

He had to fix this.


	27. Fiver Slays a Dragon

The letter was short, a roughly torn square of lined notepaper wrapped around the fairy-decorated paper of Emily’s treasured writing books. She never let Spencer read them, telling him as she busily scribbled away that she was making a surprise for them one day. But here were the pink and purple papers, ripped out of the expensive notebooks and shoved roughly into the envelope he’d torn open in his haste to find her and bring her home before someone found out she was gone.

_Dear Fiver,_ it began with, since she’d decided rabbits were more fun than his ACD pseudonym: _(in case this letter falls into the hands of the Forces of Evil)_.

A small part of him appreciated her flair for the dramatic, even as he worriedly continued reading.

_Don’t come after me. I’m SICK of being told what to do and taken away from the stuff I LOVE, like you and Balthy and my HOME. I’ll come home myself, when I’m ready, but I REFUSE to go until I’m DONE._

_So, DON’T come after me._

_But I know you. You’re probably going to and then you’ll get lost or hurt. You’re like that. So, in case you do, I put our surprise in here. Bits of it. It doesn’t matter now anyway—I was planning it for summer but this summer is going to be our last and by the time I come home I’ll be fourteen and too OLD to imagine anymore._

_Don’t show Mom. She doesn’t care anyway, or she wouldn’t do this._

_Love always, Blackbird._

_ PS. Don’t come after me. _

Already shaking his head at her, he shook the rest of the paper out and unfolded it all, finding a drawing and four pages crammed full of different parts of some kind of story she was working on, each one titled with ‘The Always Continuing Adventures of Blackbird and her loyal Fiver’. They only took him seconds to read, and barely a minute more to realise where she was going.

The drawing was familiar—he _knew_ the place it depicted. Out the door he ran, the letters in his hand, to test his working theory.

And he was right: up their tree he climbed, almost slipping twice in his hurry and cutting his arm on a stray twig before popping out the top and, for the first time, letting go of the branches. Trusting in his legs to hold him steady, he carefully pulled the drawing from his pocket and held it up against the wind, the fading afternoon sun catching it. Across the Sparkling Ravenway, the lake that Emily had named, he could see the places she’d told him about the first time they’d sat up here: the house with the unicorns, the dragon mountain, the witch pines, the wooded path where the trolls were. The drawing was of _that_ and, as he compared the two, he could see the little additions she’d made of the rabbit and the bird exploring their world.

Down the tree he hurried, leaping from it and landing hard before sprinting to his house to get his bike. She couldn’t have gone _far_. He could find her—before anyone found out.

 

The earliest numbered page—three—was a snippet of Fiver and Blackbird getting lost in the woods near their home. Spencer packed his backpack fast, adding a flashlight, the small first aid kit from his bathroom, the picture of their first day of school from his copy of _Watership,_ a packet of candy from his hidden stash under his bed, and a Seattle tourist guide—complete with a map of the area that pulled out of the back. Then he grabbed his bike and pedalled off determinedly, without telling his mom that he was going and leaving his bedroom door closed and the light on with Debussy playing on the tape deck he’d nabbed from the living room—she’d think he was reading or studying and leave him alone, it was their code. The story ran through his brain as he tried to work out where Emily would have gone by now, following the bike path past the pier he’d broken his leg on, up the road they’d learned to ride bikes, past Ethan’s house, and beyond.

The story ran through his head as he looked around, pedalling so hard that he had to slow to breathe. _Fiver wasn’t scared of the woods at all, not even when Blackbird flew high and higher than high and said, “There’s a troll over there,” and he replied “Well, I’m far smarter than any troll and I’ll prove it.” Off to the troll they went, finding the way marked by a big sign saying Gnods Hungry Butter (The Gnods being the trolls family name, because no one liked them and no one was on first name terms with them. Everyone just called them the Gnods and if talking to one Gnod, they would still call them Gnods, and this was how the Gnods knew no one liked them). What Fiver and Blackbird didn’t know was that the Gnods had a farm that no one bought stuff from and they sold butter, which was their job when they weren’t eating homework (and kids). But Fiver was a rabbit and he heard them talking about this with his ridiculous ears, saying things like “this is our farm where we farm butter” and “no one likes us” so by the time they got there, they knew all about the Gnods._

Spencer dragged on his brake, rear wheel skidding as he stared at what he’d found—along the side of the road he was riding along was a sign: Home-Made Butter for Sale, call Henry Nod, with a picture of a goat drawn roughly on the side. An arrow pointed along the road, to a gravelled drive leading up to a nice house. Spencer walked his bike over there, peering through the trees—which were a lot thinner once he was over here than what it looked from their home around the curve of the lake—and not seeing Emily anywhere.

There was a man though.

Spencer swallowed his fear and walked up the drive, squeakily managing, “Excuse me.”

The man straightened from his garden, looking at him with surprise. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this popular,” he said with a smile, standing upright with his knees popping and his leathery face creasing into a kind of smile that Spencer couldn’t help but smile back at, even though he was terrified. “First a little girl, now you. Are you here about the goats too?”

Spencer blinked. “Goats?” he asked, following when the man nodded and gestured for him to follow. He left his bike neatly sitting on its kickstand in the drive, glancing back at it as he went until he couldn’t see it anymore. Around the house they walked, until they were at a neat pen with three goats inside, bounding over to the fence to poke their heads through and make goaty noises at them.

“You can pet them if you like,” said the man, still smiling. “Kids round here love to pet them. There, give her a scratch. Her name’s Nana.”

“Hello, Nana,” Spencer said politely to the goat he was petting, surprised by how warm and wiry she felt. He’d never touched a goat before. “Um. The little girl? Did she look like this?” He dug the photo from his backpack, stepping back so Nana didn’t try to eat it and handing it to the man.

“Yup, that’s her. Lovely girl. I told her she can come pet the goats whenever she wants. Are you her brother?” The man was beginning to frown now, looking up at the sky. “Are you from around here? It’s getting dark.”

Fear hit. The _dark_. Spencer was _terrified_ of the dark.

But that didn’t matter, he had to find her.

“No, I’m just her best friend,” Spencer said, grinning just like she’d taught him to—not feeling the smile but smiling anyway, because it was expected. It seemed to work. The worry on the man’s face vanished. “We live just up the lake a bit—we’re playing a game together. Thank you for showing me your goats, but I should go and keep playing now—like you said, it’s getting dark, and I hate losing.” Still smiling, even though it hurt a bit now, he walked back to his bike with the man following and began to wheel it up the drive.

“You be safe now,” the man called after him. “Bring your friend back to see Nana sometime.”

Spencer waved, pedalling away in the direction of the horse paddock. Maybe he could catch her there.

 

Page seven finished like this: _And Fiver outsmarted the terrible trolls because they were not very clever and he wasn’t at all scared of things that weren’t clever._

_“But what are very clever?” Blackbird asked him to find what he really did fear. And he replied “Dragons are the most clever of all. I wouldn’t be at all smart enough to slay a dragon, I would be so scared I couldn’t think.”_

_“Is that all that is very clever?” she said. “I’m not afraid of dragons. I could slay one easy with a sword or even just my beak.”_

_And Fiver said. “No, because dragons aren’t things you can stab or bite. They are beings of FEAR that you’re afraid of, so your dragon wouldn’t be like mine. They wouldn’t be trolls that we outsmarted or books that we love, they would be terrible things. Mine would be dark and horrible.”_

_“And mine?”_

_He didn’t know._

_So it was decided: they would find their dragons, so Blackbird could see what hers was, and so Fiver could slay his. Off they went, first to the Rainbow Death Meadows, where the carnivory (which is SO a word that means catching and eating) unicorns would tell them about where to find a dragon or two (unlike the unhelpful Gnods and their punnets of stinky butter)._

“Hello, dear. I’m afraid the horses are away for the night.” The woman at the stables seemed nice, but he kept her distance as she did the same thing the goat man had done and looked up at the fading afternoon. “Do you have a light on that bike of yours? No one can see you riding along like that.”

“I do, it’s in my bag,” Spencer lied, holding up the photo. “Have you seen my friend? We’re playing a game and have to be home before dinner.”

“Oh, Emily, of course. She used to take riding lessons here—she came by earlier to see her old pony and give him a carrot. She didn’t mention a game though—just said she wouldn’t be back for a while. I believe she said she was heading towards Edgewater to meet her mom—where are you going?”

But Spencer was already yelling, “Thank you!” and pedalling away fast, a little awed by just how quick his friend was, and a little worried too. The next page, eighteen, was about the witches across Lake Washington—and by Edgewater was the _bridge_. He pedalled faster and didn’t stop, even when he thought his legs might fall off if he kept going.

Even as the sun went down and left the road around him dark.

 

Page eighteen was about Blackbird and Fiver riding a befriended carnivorous unicorn across the Sparkling Ravenway, but Spencer wasn’t quite that resourceful.

He’d never gone across any of the floating bridges before, although he’d seen them from the car window a few times. This one, Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, was _long_. He straddled his bike at one end, thankful for the lights that lined it as the sun finally vanished and left him standing there in the gloom. Cars swept past and paid him little mind as he worked up the courage to begin the long pedal across the bridge, stopping occasionally to look over the edge and down into the water—and thankful for the pedestrian path as every passing car he felt through the rumble of the bridge below. The waters of Lake Washington loomed under him, the pontoons creaking and the wind tearing at his hair and ears. By halfway, his face was numb and he felt deaf. Air to his lungs was cold, his chest tight, and he was _exhausted_. And it was so so so dark on the Eastside, as he passed empty tollbooths now converted into bus stops that didn’t run this late, his eyes locked on the far side of the bridge and the darkness waiting.

At the end, he stopped and sat down, needing a rest. Despite having planned to split the candy with Emily when he found her, since it was now dark and they’d missed dinner, he ate half then, his bike kickstanded next to him and his back to a light post, safe in the circle of brightness it cast down over him. An owl hooted somewhere. The traffic lightened, everyone home and warm and eating dinner. He hoped no one had checked their rooms…

Pulling out page eighteen, he read it again despite remembering it perfectly: _The witches called their home The Witchlights, named for the bubbles of light they put everywhere (because they were REALLY scared of the dark). And when Fiver asked them if they knew a dragon, they said Oh Yes, and described, what sounded to him, like a really horrible dragon indeed. It ate light with its big teeth and blew out smoke that blocked the sun, its scales so dark that everything bright was sucked in POP. Blackbird wasn’t worried, but Fiver was very worried indeed. And the witches were nice, after all, which goes to show that just because something is dirty and lives in the woods doesn’t mean they wont help you kill a mean dragon (but you shouldn’t kiss witches because the nurse at school said you’ll get warts)._

A car slowed as it went past him, his heart thumping nervously until it pulled away. Time to go. Standing, Spencer took a deep breath, looking at the road he had to take to reach the pines. No lights lined it… it wasn’t even sealed. Just tightly packed dirt along the shore of the lake, the houses set back further from the water here than on Spencer’s side.

It was dark.

He fetched his flashlight from his backpack and tried to switch it on. Nothing. The batteries were flat. No amount of banging it helped and, defeated, Spencer slid it back into his bag and climbed back onto his bike, facing the dark.

Emily was out there somewhere. He had to go.

Determinedly, he pedalled down the road, until he couldn’t even see his hand in front of him if he’d tried.

 

Disaster struck.

At some point he realised that he was lost. All the woods looked the same and he couldn’t figure out where their house was across the lake to try and figure it out, not when it was so dark all he could see were blurry yellow lights shining from windows. He pulled out the map from the Seattle guide to try and figure it out, resting the last page of the story atop it—and the wind pulled both from his hands, throwing them up into the air and into the dark before he could think to chase them

Spencer sat there horrified, staring up at the black sky, his breath coming fast. His fear had faded a little as the dark had proven to be nothing more than just incredibly frustrating to navigate through, but now true fear struck. Nothing moved around him but the lake on one side, the trees on the other, and he was no closer to finding Emily.

He closed his eyes, pushed the fear back down tight, and tried to think this through. He’d been looking for too long to find her at The Witchlights… so she’d probably moved on to their last place.

The dragon.

“Oh no,” said Spencer, opening his eyes and craning his neck back to unsuccessfully look for the dragon mountain—the mountain that, since that day in the tree, they’d learned wasn’t a dragon at all. It was the Cascade Ranges and Mount Rainier, an actual _volcano_ , and it was three hours away by _car_. Emily was on a bike! She’d _never_ make it. And now he didn’t have a map, or the story to guide him on what way she’d gone, and he didn’t know where he _was_ … anyone else would have given up.

But he wasn’t anyone else.

The bridge connected to a main roadway, he rationalised. Tourists would use it to get to the mountain. Therefore, it would have tourist stops on the way—with maps. And he could get back to the bridge, he just had to follow the lake back.

Back through the dark.

But it didn’t really scare him as much anymore, not as much as the thought of not finding Emily, so he turned and rode back without a pause, knowing that they were definitely running out of time.

 

By the time he found her, he was too tired to even yell. He just trudged up to her as she watched him, pushing his bike down on the side of the road and sitting beside her. For a moment, neither of them spoke, just sat there looking at the trees over the other side of the silent roadway. It wasn’t really dark anymore, a thin light beginning to trickle overhead as the sun rose once more, revealing Emily’s bloodied knees and palms.

“I fell off my bike,” she said when he looked at them, rubbing her palm on her sweater and leaving rusty flakes of dried blood on the wool.

“I liked your stories,” he told her, pulling the scrunched-up paper out of his pocket and waving them a bit, before going for his first-aid kit. She didn’t much like him antisepticing her wounds, but she probably also wouldn’t like her bits falling off from sepsis. Green was her _least_ favourite colour. “I guess there are more, right? These are just some pages. And, um, I lost a page… sorry.”

“S’okay. And yeah… I was going to see if your mom would take us around in the summer, so we could have a _real_ adventure, but…” Emily shrugged, sniffling. Spencer thought of asking if Fiver and Blackbird had ever found their dragons, since the final page had ended with them outside the den that _maybe_ contained dragons, but he thought better of it as she kept sniffing wetly. Instead, he put his arm around her and let her huddle tight into his side, beginning to cry properly with soft little gasps, like she was too tired to breathe properly. He understood _that._ He was exhausted.

“I don’t want you to go,” he said finally, feeling his own eyes brimming. They still had months, but it wasn’t enough _time_.

“I’d do anything to _stay_ ,” she sobbed. “We’ll be _fourteen_ , Spence, fourteen! We won’t even be the same people anymore, we’ll be _teenagers._ Teenagers don’t write stories or keep pet hares or play in hedges, what if we don’t like each other anymore?!”

She was thinking, but not saying: what if the magic was all that was keeping them together? After all, had she been a teenager and found a strange boy in her garden, she doubted she’d have taught him how to climb trees.

But he was calm, despite his tears. “Don’t be dumb,” he told her firmly. “You’re smart, so stop being dumb. Of course we’ll like each other. Ethan’s fourteen, and he likes us. He still likes climbing trees and throwing rocks and weird stories, too—and he says Balthy is _rad_ , remember?”

“Yeah, but Ethan’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah, and so? We’re ridiculous too. My glasses are crooked and you climb trees in a skirt and we both have a pet hare. Being fourteen isn’t going to change _us_ if it didn’t change Ethan. I’d like you even if we were… twenty- _eight—”_ which sounded like an appropriately ancient number, “—even if you stayed in London _forever_ , I’d still like you always. But you can’t run away.”

“Why not?” Emily asked, despite being pretty sure the answer would be ‘because you fell off your bike, dumbass, runaways don’t fall off bikes’.

But it wasn’t.

“Because…” Spencer hugged her tighter, swallowing hard. “Because that’s your dragon. I faced mine, coming here looking for you even though it was dark and horrible and I thought I might die. You’re scared of leaving… your dragon is coming back and finding everything different, including me, so you’re trying to run away instead of facing it because it’s better to throw something away than to lose it, right?”

Emily just stared at him, no longer crying, just shocked.

“Well, I think it’s right. And it’s dumb. If I faced my dragon and realised I wouldn’t die in the dark, you have to face yours and realise I’m not going to change so much that I don’t like you anymore when we’re fourteen. Besides, you have to go now.”

“Why?”

“Because I slayed _my_ dragon. Which means I’m winning at dragon slaying…” And he looked at her and smiled, even as a car driving towards them began to slow down at the sight of them sitting there by their piled-up bikes. “And you hate letting me win.”

He was right, she realised furiously. She hated when he was right, which was a lot, and even worse when he was coupling it with winning. But any response she had was forestalled by the car whooping its lights at then, the red and blue startling them both as the police cruiser pulled up beside them and a man in uniform climbed out.

“Emily Prentiss and Spencer Reid?” he asked after studying them for a moment, both their hearts dropping. Uh oh. “From Madison Park?”

Guiltily, they nodded.

The man shook his head at them. “You’re both in a world of trouble,” he warned them. “We’ve been looking for you all night. Your mothers are beside themselves.”

Oops.


	28. A Terrible Choice

Nineteen eighty-one flew by, mostly because the month they were dreading made it seem faster. September was five months away, then four, then three… then two.

School ended and neither Emily, nor Spencer, nor Ethan, was all that pleased about it.

On this day, Spencer and Ethan were sitting on the pier—no danger of broken legs today, only bloody thumbs as Ethan tried to teach Spencer to fish and all Spencer learned was how not to bait a hook. Ever since they’d run away, they’d been given a lot less space to roam—mostly by Diana, since Elizabeth had never agreed with giving them space in the first place—and Spencer kept checking his watch miserably. He had two hours and then he had to check in at home, which was just about when Emily would be back from church _anyway_ , so it would cut into their limited time left together.

“Don’t worry, Specs. It’ll be lonely, just the two of us, but we managed it before. And we can send her presents. I’ll make more pinecone animals.”

“She’ll like those,” Spencer admitted, dangling his legs over the side and watching dragonflies skim around the surface of the water. “I don’t know, Eth… it just doesn’t feel like it could get worse…” Emily was leaving. He was being shifted up into the junior classes, skipping over Ethan’s grade. His mom was looking tired again, which meant she was on a downswing. Balthy was being mean too, hiding away instead of coming out to share lunch and chess with them, like she didn’t even care or conceptualise that Emily would be gone soon. It was like before all over again, and he knew being eleven was going to be as awful as the beginning of being ten had been… except this time, it would linger on, to twelve and thirteen…

“Maybe Em will think of something,” Ethan suggested, sucking at his thumb now he’d gotten the hook out. Spencer eyed it and sighed, standing to go and get the first aid kit before sepsis set in and Ethan’s arm fell off.

“I don’t think so,” he said sadly. “Not unless it involves defenestrating her luggage again…”

“Defen—what?”

“It means to throw someone or something out of a window,” Emily yelled in the loud kind of voice that meant she was really excited about something, jumping onto the pier and skipping the last few feet to them, arms swinging. “Spencer read it out to me in a book.”

“The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch,” Spencer explained, “a short story in _Tales from the White Hart,_ which you should borrow and read, it’s super—”

“Pass,” Ethan said quickly. “Why are you so bouncy?”

But Emily wasn’t listening anymore; she’d leapt forward to grab Spencer by his shirt, shaking him a little before dragging him along the pier and back to land. “Come on, come on!” she yelled. “You have to come with me, quick! And _quietly_.”

Spencer glanced back at Ethan, who shrugged and laughed. “Have fun,” he yelled after them, going back to his fishing.

“Where are we going?” Spencer asked, but Emily refused to answer.

 

Where they were going, it turned out, was to eavesdrop on their mothers having a Very Important discussion in Elizabeth’s office. The conversation happening in wasn’t the first of its kind to be had in the big house—the first had been almost seven months ago, when Diana had recovered enough following Spencer’s broken leg to be summoned into Elizabeth’s office about it.

That conversation had gone very much like this:

“I’m concerned about Spencer,” Elizabeth began, which made two of them in the room. Diana was, as always, concerned for her son and his wellbeing. “I asked Emily and she says that you didn’t tell them to play in the library that day, Diana. She says they barely saw you to speak to you at all.”

Diana closed her eyes, sinking into her chair with her heart sinking too. “I remember conversations I’ve never had, as though they happened so clearly,” she murmured. “I have a detailed memory of discussing horse racing with you, despite some part of me knowing that you despise the sport.”

Elizabeth frowned. “It was always Michael’s vice, not mine. Can these false memories be handled?”

Diana was forced to answer much the same as her doctors had told her when she’d told them of this: “I don’t know.”

In 1981, no one really knew.

There was a quiet pause in the office; quiet, but not awkward. Not awkward, but very sad.

“I’ve taken a three-year posting in London when the current ambassador there retires,” Elizabeth said finally, before asking the question that would become their main concern over the next seven months: “What’s to be done about Spencer?”

Diana tensed, fingers white as they tightened their grip on the armchair. “He can stay with me.”

“Can he?”

They didn’t really know that either.

And Elizabeth finished the conversation with something private, something shared. A memory that wasn’t false at all. A sentence they both held dear: “I told you,” she said, “back in college, when you were first diagnosed, do you remember what I told you?”

“Yes,” answered Diana. “You said you’d do anything to help me.”

“I meant that.”

 

That was then.

This is the conversation Emily overheard, her ear pressed to the door and listening intently after hearing Spencer’s name:

Diana sounded terrified, something that terrified Emily too, because grown-ups weren’t ever supposed to sound so scared. “I can’t, Liz, I can feel it coming. I’m going to get sicker, get worse, and they can’t get the medication right—it either doesn’t work or it drives me out of my mind, and I’m… I’m going to leave Spencer with a madwoman for a mother, or medicated beyond reason, and I _can’t_ , how can I care for him like that, alone?”

“Childcare is an option. I can help, I told you I would help—hire a live-in nurse—”

“He’ll still see it all, he’ll still take it upon himself to care for me. I’ll be dooming him to… god, I don’t even know the day of the week anymore. He’s the one who gets me up for breakfast in the morning, reminds me to take my medication, reminds me to even _get up_ … when Emily is gone and I’m all he has, who will remind _him_ to be a child?”

“Plenty of people with schizophrenia raise their children—”

“Plenty of people with schizophrenia lose their children.”

Emily, at this point, had been almost too scared to keep listening, but she’d learned something the night she’d run away: always face your fears.

Spencer had taught her that.

“I can’t work,” Diana was continuing. “How can I provide for him? I have a college fund that won’t cover the colleges he _needs_ to go to to thrive. He needs books, stimulation, learning experiences, life experiences… not his teenage years being a caretaker to me. The mother raises the child, not the other way… William doesn’t want him, I’ve _tried_ —”

“My offer still stands.”

Emily inched closer, breath fogging the wood, hearing Diana’s sharp gasp. And she kept listening.

And she heard.

 

This is the now, with Spencer there beside Emily as the voices within no longer discuss Diana’s declension, but, instead, just what was to be done with Spencer.

London, they said.

Elizabeth would take him to London, alongside Emily. They would live together, there, but not as they lived here—not in separate homes with Spencer with his mom and Emily with hers, but with Spencer living with Elizabeth and Emily, while his mom remained… here. In America.

Without him.

Emily could barely hide how excited she was, positively vibrating with the effort it was taking to remain quiet beside Spencer. Her best friend, living with her _forever?_ That was amazing! It couldn’t get any better, or so she thought.

Spencer could barely hide how terrified he was, his breath coming fast and shallow, his heart beating too quickly to keep track. On the floor beneath them, his palms were clammy; he didn’t think he could stand if he wanted to.

His mom was going to send him away. She didn’t want him. She was _giving him to Elizabeth._

“Will he be happier without me?” he heard his mom ask of him, her voice resigned. He didn’t hear Elizabeth’s answer.

He found that, in fact, he could stand. He could run.

And it was his turn to run and keep on running, despite Emily calling out his name, despite both mothers shouting after him, the dragon of his fears finally here and not made of the dark after all; instead, the dragon was his mother’s illness. His mother’s abandonment of him.

There was no way he could face it, not now, not ever—so he ran.


	29. An Event Called Death

Unlike Emily, Spencer didn’t run far. Just home, to where his mom was and, he’d thought, would always be when he needed her.

And, just this time, she was.

Diana found him in her bed, curled up small under the covers. Surprisingly, when she pulled them back to look in at her overheated son in his blanket cave, he wasn’t crying. Just curled up there, watching her miserably, betrayal written over every feature.

“You should read _Hamlet_ again,” she told him as she slid into bed beside him and let him snuggle into her arms, worrying over how small and slight he felt to her. Always a boy in her head, she suspected, no matter how much he grew—he would always be this age, this perfect age, her most favourite of all his ages. Except, perhaps, when he was seven and enraptured by poetry of hares. Or three, when his mind had revealed itself to be truly unique in every way, her special boy. “That is a cautionary tale against eavesdropping that I think you would do well to heed.”

“Emily started it.”

“Emily, as darling as she is, is a demon in a child’s body. That girl was born to be contrary—if eavesdropping was encouraged, she’d cover her ears just to show her disdain for it. If she ‘starts something’, my boy, I implore you not to jump aboard.”

Spencer sniffled, a small smile appearing. “She does like being troublesome,” he whispered. “Garett says I’m a ‘calming influence’ on her.”

“You’re a calming influence on many things. Now, look at me, talk to me. What do you need to hear from me to shake that panic from your eyes?”

Spencer took a breath that shuddered all the way through his skinny body, his fingers curling tight into Diana’s shirt as he pressed close. “Are you sending me away because you don’t want me?”

Oh, how her heart hurt to hear him say that, as he looked at her like she was William.

“Absolutely never, there isn’t a single molecule of me that doesn’t want you—not even a _hair_. I would carry you across this earth if that was what it took to be your mother, Spencer—there isn’t another child I could possibly want but you. You know this, I’ve told you before, when you’ve asked me for a sibling—what do I say?”

He smiled a little glassily, some measure of calm overtaking the panic as he took in what she was saying and believing her. “Why mess with perfection…”

“Exactly. Spencer, I need you to look at me.” He did. “This decision hasn’t been made yet, not without the input of one very important opinion.”

“Mine?”

“Absolutely. Did you really think I would allow you to leave my sight if you had no desire to leave? I’m not going to throw you out of the nest unless you assure me that you can fly, baby… you know this. I’d wished you could learn about it in a less haphazard way, but here we are… will you listen to what we’ve discussed?”

He nodded, so she told him what would happened if he stayed, and she told him what would happen if he chose to leave. To fly away, quite literally, without her.

If he stayed, they would move together. Find a nice quiet home somewhere and live. Diana couldn’t promise him that she would be well for this. She couldn’t promise him what it would be like. The only thing she knew was that it would be hard, and that a lot of that weight would fall on his shoulders, but she would stay beside him for as long as she was able.

She couldn’t promise that that would be forever, because, much like many other things in her life, she just didn’t know if that was true.

He would attend the same school. Be close enough to visit Balthy. Be able to visit Ethan. He’d have his mom.

He’d have the weight of his mom.

If he left, he would go with Emily—and Elizabeth, who’d become one of his legal guardians, which was _not_ the same as being his mom, he was reassured. Diana was still his mom and always would be: it just meant that Elizabeth was allowed to take care of him when Diana wasn’t there to do so, without having to consult her for every decision. He would go to London for the next three years, or however long her posting went, but he would also go with her _beyond_ that. He was startled to discover that this wasn’t just a little bit of time—Diana told him quietly that, if he went, he wouldn’t be coming back to live with her ever unless it proved to be absolutely untenable for him with Elizabeth. If he went, Diana would be going to a sanatorium in Vegas: an option which horrified him at first, the thought of her locked away, until she told him that it was her choice, and her wish.

“They’re not prisons, baby,” she told him, showing him via a glossy pamphlet the place she’d chosen. “They’re places of care, of rest… I know I’m going to decline, although not how quickly. If I go to them now, while I am still somewhat cognitively able, they can begin catering treatment to me early… we may gain time in taking action sooner.”

If he went, his mom would be somewhere she would be taken care of… she might get _better,_ he parsed from that. Or, at least, she might not get worse?

And he’d have Emily.

But not Ethan, or Balthy…

“It’s your choice,” she told him. “And you don’t need to answer straight away. You have until the beginning of September to cement your decision. Elizabeth will accept it either way, I promise.”

“I’ll think about it,” was all he replied.

 

He decided to decide, and he decided to be logical about it. In order to be logical and rational, he had to _not_ be emotional—which meant that, until he made his choice, he was avoiding Emily.

Emily, naturally, was confused and hurt over this, at first trying to be gentle about how much she didn’t like being avoided and, eventually, being angry about it. For a week, while Spencer worried constantly over his choice, she stormed around the house with such a face that, soon enough, everyone else began to avoid her as well.

But Spencer barely noticed, because he was very busy trying to make his choice _without_ being swayed by how much he didn’t want to lose his best friend. Instead, he visited everything else he loved, even if he didn’t love those things quite as much as her.

 

He visited both libraries that were dear to him; the one in the big house, where Balthy’s first litter had been born so long ago, or so it felt to him, and the one in his house, where all the books he’d known since his first conscious thought were lined in untidy rows of well-loved words. He read as many as he could, of the ones that he’d read before—which was almost all of them—and the few that had escaped his grasp. He read them fast and he read some slow, pausing over his most favourite bits.

The last book he found wasn’t in either of the libraries. It was beside his bed, a battered, adored copy of _Watership Down_ , with the rabbits on the front faded from wear. He picked it up and looked at the cover for the longest time, deliberately not turning back to study the wall where Fiver adventured with the bravest Blackbird, and then he opened it to the page it fell naturally to: the one that held the photo of their first day of school.

He was trying to ignore Emily, but Emily—much as she always would—was refusing to be ignored.

He moved the photo aside and studied the passage below. _Human beings say, “It never rains but it pours”,_ he read. The page continued: _This is not very apt, for it frequently does rain without pouring. The rabbits’ proverb is better expressed. They say, “One cloud feels lonely”: and indeed it is true that the sky will soon be overcast._

If he stayed, he’d have his mom, but he would be lonely, again… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, to take the option that seemed cloudier right now. And, no matter where he went, there would always be stories to consume. He’d always have books.

He went to bed feeling thoughtful, and dreamed that night of flying.

 

He visited Ethan’s home for the first time. Ethan’s home was as vibrant as Ethan was, and it occurred to Spencer as he was led through the domicile just why Ethan was the way he was. The place was a haphazardly tidy mess of living, of a life that was right in the middle of being fantastic. Photos clung to every wall, hardly any of them the polished staging of the ones that Elizabeth displayed. They were snapshots of life, of smiling and laughing, with Ethan and his sister in every one of them, always looking to their family and happy to be doing so. The bookshelves were filled with books and games and trinkets that Spencer wanted to examine closer, two cats chasing Ethan down the stairs as he galloped down to meet Spencer there.

“Hi,” said Spencer nervously, looking from the stooped, bespectacled figure of Ethan’s portly father to Ethan himself, wondering how this librarian-esque figure had created his long-haired, silly friend. “Um. Want to hang out for a bit?”

“Shit yes!” Ethan yelled in reply, clearly overjoyed to be able to show Spencer around his house, his swear earning a soft, “Ethan,” from his quiet father. Spencer, with a guilty grin at Mr. Ethan, followed his friend up the stairs and down a cluttered hall, to a room that exploded with his friend’s personality. Clothes and magazines and books and musical instruments on every available surface; Spencer found a slim space to seat himself on on the bed, after disturbing a keyboard from within the blankets that he assumed Ethan slept with.

“Want to see everything I own?” Ethan asked with obvious hope that the answer would be ‘yes’.

But Spencer couldn’t say yes, not yet. He had a reason he was here, and that reason came first.

He told him about the choice he’d been given, his friend’s ever-present smile finally vanishing as he sat there petting the fatter of the two cats and staring at a Frank Zappa poster on the wall.

“So, I guess now I have to choose…” Spencer finished lamely, trailing off at the silence in the room that didn’t feel like it was ever this quiet. Down the hall, he could hear someone singing. More voices floated from downstairs, playful bickering and laughter, someone calling out _down, Django, drop the fish!_ to what Spencer assumed was the other cat, since the one on Ethan’s lap had a tag reading ‘Reinhardt’.

“I don’t want you to go,” said Ethan finally.

Spencer swallowed hard and felt the pain of that choke him.

“I know,” he managed. “I…”

“You don’t want to go, right?” Ethan was staring at him hopefully, his eyes dangerously bright, his fingers tight enough through the ginger cat’s fur that it grumbled a little unhappily at him, tail flicking.

Spencer couldn’t answer that. He didn’t know.

“We can write letters if I do…” He shifted on the bed, the keyboard clinking beside him, something else crunching.

“Yeah, well, it’s not the same… you know that.”

He did. Even with Emily, despite how much he’d loved their letters, it hadn’t ever been the same.

“I’m sorry.” And he was. He was so sorry. Before he could say anything, leap right into promising he’d stay because he couldn’t bear the devastated look on his friend’s face, someone thumped twice on the door before bursting in.

“Ethan, where’s Rein—oh, hello.” Ethan’s sister smiled distractedly at Ethan, her hair a startling array of colours tied back with a black headband. Spencer stared, fascinated. “What’s wrong with you? You look miserable.” This was aimed at Ethan, who wasn’t hiding how upset he was; Spencer switching his attention away from the older girl and back to his friend, surprised that Ethan didn’t seem to mind his sister seeing him almost crying. Spencer thought that he’d mind a lot, Emily seeing him cry—or any of the kids at school. Maybe with sisters it was different.

“Spencer’s moving away.” Ethan shrugged with a kind of effort that suggested he was angry as well as upset, although Spencer didn’t think it was aimed at him. He was correct in this supposition: Ethan was angrier at himself for resenting his friend’s potential happiness than he was angry for his friend for wanting what was offered. “It’s fine, Fi.”

“Oh. That sucks.” And then Ethan’s sister did a—to Spencer—surprising thing.

She hugged him. Spencer blinked, staring openly, something deep in his brain latching onto that moment and clinging on tight. Even though he didn’t really conceptualise just what was so important about this moment right then, he’d always remember it: this was the exact memory he’d recall whenever his brain meandered over the idea of ‘family’. This cluttered, almost untidy home filled with people who were entirely unalike but loved each other anyway, enough that no one was scared of hurting in front of the other.

And it wasn’t something he had, despite his mother’s love. It wasn’t something Emily had either.

But he wanted it dearly.

When he left there that day, it was with a feeling like he didn’t want to lose this, but not really knowing what _this_ was.

 

When he got home, he wandered aimlessly. Across the grounds and away from his home, passing below their tree and running his fingers on the rough trunk. He found the oak tree Emily had been climbing the day so long ago and he found the first ever tunnel through the hedges they’d made. Past Garett’s work-shed he went, skirting by Balthy’s hare-house and not being surprised that she wasn’t there—she rarely was anymore. Finally, he made his way into the big house, avoiding the hall where Emily’s room was and instead creeping through the lower floor until he found himself standing outside Elizabeth’s office like he’d been summoned there.

He knocked politely, feeling a tremor of nerves pass through when a voice called for him to enter. Despite how long he’d lived here, how many Christmases he’d spent in the company of this woman, despite her teaching him to skate… he still felt wary of her, never sure if he had her approval or just her tolerance. She was a kind of dragon too, filled with all the power to withhold parts of his life he held dear.

Despite his nerves, he slipped inside and stood in front of her desk, feeling small and slight as she looked down at him.

“Is your mother okay?” was the first thing she asked him, concern in her eyes. That concern bolstered him.

“Yes,” he squeaked. Voice shrill and sweaty hands clasped behind his back, he didn’t know what he was going to say before he said it. “Um. Can we talk? Please?”

Maybe he expected her to say no, but she didn’t. Instead, she placed her pen down and gestured to the chair in front of her desk—the one Emily had spent many miserable afternoons in being scolded or instructed on all the ways she was going wrong or could be going better. Much just she had, he took up very little of the chair, his feet not touching the floor and his hands tiny on the arms. Elizabeth looked at him in the chair and felt a pang of nostalgia for when Emily had looked at her so innocently, with no guile on her face, just anticipation of her mother’s attention.

“How may I help you, Spencer?”

Needing to move to settle his nerves, he swung his feet below him, focused hard on what he was thinking as he tried to straighten out his own mind. “I was wondering, um. Why?”

She looked at him like she was expecting more, so he tried again.

“Why are you offering me this? It’s… it’s big, I guess. I don’t know exactly how much, but I know that it’s big. I mean, what you’re… it’s a parents’ job but you’re not my parent and I don’t know—I guess I just need to know _why_ before I can decide whether it’s big and good or just big.”

He suspected that maybe he’d gone a little off the rails towards the end there, but she seemed to understand anyway.

“Your mother is very dear to me,” was her answer. Unlike Spencer, she didn’t need to fidget or bounce to calm her nerves, which hid the fact that she _was_ nervous. For Elizabeth, hiding that she was nervous was an important part of her career. But, in this moment, perhaps it would have been better that her hand had shaken—it would have been some comfort to the small boy in front of her facing a life-changing decision, although to her the correct answer seemed obvious. She’d never been good at emphasising completely with the emotions of children. “She has been for a very long time. When she first suspected that she was ill, we were dearer still to each other. At the time, I promised her my support—and I fully stand by that promise—despite that there is a distance between us there hadn’t been then.”

“Dear like Emily is to me?” Spencer asked, thinking that through. He’d do a lot for Emily—if she had a son and she was sick, would he look after her? If they were grown and she needed him too? Absolutely. Just like she’d looked after him when his leg was broken, even if she hadn’t been very good at it.

“Perhaps dearer… we were considerably older, which brings a certain complexity into the relationship we had that your friendship with Emily naturally lacks. You are children with a child’s notion of love, you couldn’t possibly understand.”

Spencer thought about that, the quiet waiting but not painful. Both Spencer and Elizabeth were alike in their comfort in silence, when Emily needed noise to feel comfortably grounded.

“I don’t think there’s anything different about a friend loving a friend whether they’re grown or not,” he decided finally, his legs stopping swinging as he made a choice to be firm about what he’d realised he believed. “If Emily was sick, I’d do anything for her. And if you love Mom like I love Emily, that must mean you think this is good for Mom, right?”

Elizabeth nodded, watching him carefully.

“So…” He looked at his shoes, heart sinking. “The right choice is to go with you… even though you’re doing it because you love my mom but not me, I don’t really factor into your decision at all.”

Elizabeth couldn’t comfort him in this moment, because to say she loved him at that point would have been a lie. She merely said, “It would be a great weight from your mother’s shoulders.”

Spencer nodded, standing. He didn’t thank her; she hadn’t really helped, just added guilt to his misery. But, before he left the room, he asked one last thing. “If you loved Mom so much, why did you guys move so far apart? I was seven when I met you… seven is a long time to be without your best friend.”

But all Elizabeth answered was, “Your father,” and wouldn’t answer anymore.

Spencer suspected that this was something he wasn’t quite old enough to understand, leaving without saying another word.

And he still didn’t know what he was going to do.

 

Tired and no closer to an answer, Spencer trudged back to his home, stopping only once when he saw a familiar grave shape sitting in a tree nearby. Emily looked miserable, her back to Spencer and one arm hooked over a branch as she watched nothing in particular. He thought of going over there and telling her everything he’d learned today, about the comfort of books and his new burning wish that his family could be as wildly hectic as Ethan’s and what he’d learned about love from her mom… but he didn’t. Tomorrow, he decided. He’d talk to Emily tomorrow, and then they’d decide.

So he turned his back on her and simply went home. The front light was on for him despite the sun still being low in the sky, and it was a comforting reminder that he didn’t have to decide yet—even as the garden-bed near his door twitched and Balthy appeared. She looked up at him, twitching her nose busily as he stopped and crouched, holding his fingers out for her to sniff if she wanted a pat. With no real hope that she’d let him pat her, since she’d been weird and hiding lately, he was pleasantly surprised when she hopped right up to him, putting her paws on his knee and watching him solemnly.

“Hi, Baltharog,” Spencer greeted his first friend at the Sometimes Homes, petting her back gently and smoothing her ears back, her eyes half-closing at the touch. “Would you miss me if I left?”

She didn’t answer, just huffed softly and tried to jump _onto_ his knee, startling him almost into falling back. Not since she’d been barely a baby herself, living in Michael’s office, had she been so openly affectionate. She even let him pick her up, lying placidly in his arms as he looked around for his mom and found no one was watching him.

Just for tonight, he decided, carrying her carefully inside despite the threat of fleas.

She didn’t fight him or make a mess in his room, just lying beside him on the bed as he told her everything he’d found out today, everything he hadn’t told Emily yet. He told her about the books and about Ethan and about Elizabeth and about how scared he was to leave, but how scared he also was of staying. And she listened, her eyes almost closed but without making a sound, and he curled around her with her little heart thumping against his chest and thought that Elizabeth was definitely wrong: he knew he loved Balthy with as much intensity as he loved everything else in his life—so fiercely and furiously that he knew he couldn’t bear to lose any of it.

“But isn’t that what I told Emily?” he asked the hare, who seemed to have gone to sleep, yawning once, whiskers still twitching. “That we have to face what we’re scared of, our dragons… but I’m scared of _every_ option, so how do I pick which to face?”

Balthy, unfortunately, had very little to say on the subject.

“I’m trying to keep everyone,” Spencer admitted to the sleeping hare and his darkening room, the nightlight by his bed now brighter than the light outside. “I know I can’t, but I’m trying anyway… I need to stay with the people who need me best, not the ones I want the most…”

And that, he decided, was why he had to stay. His mom needed him. Balthy needed him. No one else would feed her during winter or make sure she had at very best biscuits—especially if Emily was gone.

Emily didn’t need anyone. She never needed anyone, and maybe that’s why her and her mom were how they were with each other. Spencer didn’t want to be that independent, not yet…

He wanted his mom, and he wanted his pet, and he guessed the weight of those wants was worth the choice.

“I’ll stay,” he promised Balthy, closing his eyes and hoping to sleep, because tomorrow he’d have to tell Emily. “I’ll miss her, but I’ll stay…”

 

But when he woke, Balthy hadn’t moved from her spot beside him and never would again.


	30. Goodbye.

The two children worked together quietly and anybody passing by would have thought quite fondly of their bowed heads. What focused children, the stranger would have thought. Or, possibly, what _strange_ children, once they’d noticed that the project that the children were so intent on was not a jigsaw puzzle or a colouring book or anything so normal, but a large rock that they were painting together in shades of grey and black. In the fading remnants of the fog that had stolen across the lawns this morning, the sun was bright and wispy, illuminating both children strangely. Far unlike the first time these two children had stood together in this same garden, they were no longer so opposite. The stranger may have thought them siblings, both dressed still in their pyjamas with similarly paint-covered hands and the same reddened eyes.

Both children had, in fact, faced their same dragon today. They were still facing it now, in the brush of paint over the rock they would lay over their beloved friend to mark her final place of rest, despite neither of them really believing she was gone. Occasionally, one of the bowed heads would lift, hazel or brown eyes scanning the silent lawn for a familiar head poking from the hedges, for two long ears and a tufty white tail. For a lithe line of tan lying beside them or for her silly, happy, hopping dance as she celebrated being a hare and being alive. In Emily’s pocket, she’d crumbled a biscuit, in case Balthy could be coaxed out of this trick she was playing on them by pretending to be dead and back into living with the promise of her favourite treat. By Spencer’s side, he’d propped their book, and he was copying a line from it onto the rock they’d been given to decorate.

Inside the big house, in a scene much unlike anything the house had ever seen before, there was a basket being readied with towels inside so its small, sad contents wouldn’t be uncomfortable while it rested eternally in the ground. Small trinkets had been added: flowers from Garett, who’d grumbled about the number of hares he was no longer allowed to remove from his gardens but yet felt sad for this one in particular anyway. A small sheaf of poetry from Diana, who grieved that her son had lost something precious, the brave hare. Even Elizabeth had added a small gift of her own, a gold coin from some flight of fancy she vaguely remember from mythology classes in college. Even she could imagine, sometimes, although she made sure no one saw her doing so.

When it was time to say goodbye, they came outside to find the rock thoroughly decorated, Emily’s painted rabbits leaping and twisting around a single black line of careful wording copied from the book beside them:

**“My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.”**

“You haven’t written her name,” Diana noted, crouching to study the gravestone they’d created. By Emily’s request, everyone gathered there, from the house staff to Elizabeth, to Ethan who’d been fetched by Garett, was dressed in black to show respect for the fallen. “How will people know who lies here?”

“They won’t,” Spencer said, biting his lip against the pain that hadn’t stopped, just kept building, since he’d woken that morning to find her stiff and cold beside her. “They don’t need to… _we_ know, and we’re the ones who loved her.”

Emily didn’t say anything, just reached out and took his hand.

“Beautiful,” Diana reassured them both. “Now, hurry and dress—we must begin. Baltharog would love to be buried beneath the morning sun. She always was a before noon hare.”

“Most are,” Spencer muttered, adding, “they’re crepuscular animals,” before running to his house so no one could see him crying.

He’d been right there beside her, but that hadn’t stopped her dying.

And he hadn’t even known she was sick.

 

Emily had had Opinions about how they would bury their hare, ranging from a Viking funeral complete with flaming arrow to a sky burial atop their favourite tree. Elizabeth, who’d also nixed getting Balthy stuffed and mounted on the mantle as well as paying for her to be cremated and set into a stone from the moon—because moon rabbits, Emily had explained matter-of-factly—had been the one to suggest they paint her a headstone. While the children dressed to say goodbye, Garett coated the fast-drying paint with a waterproof sealant, moving the dried rock over to the hole he’d dug for them, beneath the loveliest walnut tree in the gardens. None of her brood were there to join them in their goodbyes, startled away from the sounds of humans busily working, but her human family were here and her hare family would return as the grass did over her grave, finding life in what she would give back to the soil she was contained in.

And when Spencer and Emily reappeared, together of course, but now dressed in their nicest clothes, it was to a sea of sympathetic faces. Emily put her bravest mask on, leading Spencer through the small crowd to stand beside the grave, her hand in his. Spencer couldn’t pretend to be brave if he wanted to, knowing he was crying in front of everyone but sure that Balthy deserved the tears. Ethan patted his back and Elizabeth handed him a tissue as he passed, his mother stepping up beside him and supporting him with a hand upon his shoulder.

“What a good life you gave her,” Diana said in the quiet hush that followed. “A funeral for a hare has never been so well-attended. Why, I think she might have been the luckiest hare in the world.”

“She was the _best_ hare in the world,” Emily said loyally.

“Shall we get her in, then?” Garett asked gruffly, nodding to the hole.

Spencer swallowed, fingers tightening around Emily’s, who nodded for him. It was time to say goodbye.

“Would you like to say something to her?” Diana asked quietly. Spencer did—he wanted to say all kinds of things to her, everything he’d never said in person. How sorry he was that he hadn’t realised she’d been asking for help, how sorry he was that he hadn’t helped her anyway… how much he didn’t want her to be dead and how he’d never love a pet like he loved her.

But, he didn’t know how to say anything like that while everyone was watching, Ethan now crying too, mostly because Spencer was and Ethan was a sympathetic crier, and Emily steadfastly dry-eyed and Elizabeth watching him carefully.

“I have a poem,” he said finally, closing his eyes and speaking from memory the poem that his mom had told him would be so splendid for a hare’s funeral, all those years ago when he hadn’t known how wonderful life could be even when everything was changing.

> _“But now, beneath this walnut-shade_
> 
> _He finds his long, last home,_
> 
> _And waits in snug concealment laid,_
> 
> _Till gentler Puss shall come._
> 
> _He, still more agèd, feels the shocks_
> 
> _From which no care can save,_
> 
> _And, partner once of Tiney’s box,_
> 
> _Must soon partake his grave.”_

When he was done, Emily was fidgeting and most of the people there looked bored, but the ground covered Balthy and the burial was done. It seemed, he thought, a very fast kind of goodbye. Some of the staff had dispersed, to organise brunch for those attending—another Emily request—and Spencer felt lost.

But his mom leaned down close and said, “How about we stay a little longer?” as Elizabeth led Ethan and the remaining staff back into the big house, nodding to Diana as they went. And, together, the three stood there by the fresh grave, looking down at the rock Garett had placed above it.

“Is there more you’d like to say?” Diana asked both him and Emily, who’d refused to talk because she was determined not to be sad in front of everyone. “Now that we’re alone, with just Balthy to hear.”

“Can she hear us if she’s underground?” Emily asked.

Diana answered, “Well, what else are those ridiculous ears for?” earning a laugh from Emily and a wet giggle from Spencer.

“Well, I want to say that I’m sorry you died, Balthy,” Emily said finally. “It really hurts that I didn’t get to say goodbye to you because I have all these things I would have said if I’d known. And I guess because I didn’t get to say goodbye and because Mom wouldn’t let me touch your body, I don’t really feel like you’re dead so I’m not really… well, I’m sad. But also sure you’re going to come back…” She trailed off and looked at Spencer. “But I guess you’re not. So, sorry… about that.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t save you,” Spencer whispered, his eyes burning again. Now, as his fists bunched and he hunched his shoulders tight against all the hurt of the past week suddenly welling up inside him, he saw Emily beginning to blink fast too. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a good friend. I’m sorry I talked about leaving on our last night, and I’m sorry that I don’t know how to tell your approximate five-hundred and thirteen descendants that you’re gone—”

“Whoa,” said Emily.

“—and I’m sorry that I told you I’d stay and you died _anyway_ and I’m sorry I don’t make the right choices and I’m sorry—” He was crying too hard to keep going, turning and huddling into his mom’s front, choking out the very last thread of his jumbled thinking as she cuddled him close. “—and I’m sorry that I don’t want to stay anymore because it feels like I lied…” He blinked up at his mom, lashes wet and sticking together, his lip white from biting it. “Mom, is it bad that I lied?”

“No,” said Diana, who’d known he’d go from the very beginning. He was brave, her boy, and he’d always choose the option that scared him the most. “You didn’t lie, love. She knew. She knew you wanted to go… why do you think she came to you? A mother always knows, Spencer, even when that mother is a hare. Baltharog didn’t go to you because she needed saving, not from a young boy who shouldn’t be saving anyone—she went to you to say goodbye because she knew you would find comfort in knowing she was at rest.”

Spencer nodded, Emily watching. “And you’re not mad I want to go?” he rasped out.

She shook her head. “Never. A mother _always_ knows, Spence. And I’m happy I get to be sad at you making such a brave choice on your own. And now we’re all going to go inside and be happy to be sad together—about Balthy and about the future, and about everything scary that we’re brave enough to face.”

Each child taking a hand, she led them into the big house, not a single creature—not even a hare—watching them go.

And the grounds were quiet, as though they also mourned what was ending.

 

When summer ended, so did this story—or, at least, the beginning of it.

There were four at the airport, four who’d found that they’d filled the big sometimes homes together quite admirably. But, the time had come for that to end. When the plane would leave today, it would take with it three of the four assembled, leaving only one.

Unlike the morning that Balthy had died, Spencer wasn’t crying. He’d faced loss and knew how it cleaved and tore, how resolutely undoable it was. He wasn’t losing his mom—she’d always be there, a phone call or a letter or a plane flight away, and he knew he’d see her again. It wasn’t his job to save her, as she’d told him every time he’d doubted the course he was choosing, but it was his job to be happy. And he was determined to be so, in order to give her a reason to keep fighting the demons in her mind.

Emily, however, was almost overwhelmed with excitement. She _was_ bright-eyed, but more because she was excited beyond reason and giddy with that, showing Spencer everything about the airport that she knew and explaining to him every detail about the coming flight he had to expect. They would watch movies and nap together a bazillion miles in the air—Spencer winced a bit at that, but didn’t correct her—and then, at the end, they’d get out the plane in _London,_ where they’d live together always! It was like a dream come true, and she still wasn’t sure that she wasn’t going to suddenly wake up and be lonely again. Unlike her last plane ride away from the States, she was dressed and packed, having done it herself three weeks before in her a burst of uncharacteristic enthusiasm that had shocked Elizabeth enough that she’d taken her to the doctor to ensure she was okay.

“I have a gift for you both,” Diana told them, corralling both the children as Elizabeth handled the paperwork of a diplomatic flight. “Both for you, and for them.” She nodded to the two battered dolls sitting by their carry-ons, stitched-on smiles firmly facing the wide windows looking out over the airfield below. “Are you ready?”

They were, both children waiting politely but eagerly for the present. When it came, it proved to be wonderful… more wonderful than they’d expected.

“Oh,” said Emily, who couldn’t think for once of a single polite thing her mother had impressed on her to say when given a gift, so overwhelmed she was by it.

“Mom, I love her,” was Spencer’s answer, as he took the toy hare carefully from his mother’s hands and studied every inch of her, from her snow-white fur to her black-tipped ears, right around to how perfectly long her legs were. A brave, elegant hare. “It’s a Balthy to take with us…”

“That it is,” Diana assured them, leaning forward, first, to kiss her son on his forehead, before across to Emily to do the same to her flushed cheek. “Now, please do take care of this hare. She’s very scared of flying… hares very rarely leave the ground they’re born on.”

“We’ll take care of her,” Emily promised, sure that she’d never break this promise. And, because she sensed Diana was worried about more than their shared stuffed hare, she added, “And I’ll looked after Spencer too, I promise.”

Diana was sure that she would.

The call came. It was time for them to board.

The only goodbyes left to say were these: “Be happy,” Diana told Spencer, who promised her he would be, holding the hare and walking bravely to the gate he was being summoned to, with Emily at his side. Two children facing the world, sure that they could handle anything that was thrown at them.

Diana believed they could too.

And one more… Elizabeth stopped beside her, looking over at the children she was now responsible for and then, as it gravity of it truly hit home, at her friend beside her. “I’ll take care of him,” she said unnecessarily, because Diana knew this and would have never have said yes to this if she’d doubted it for a second. “You won’t regret this, Diana. It will be good for him… and for you.”

“I’ve never regretted trusting you,” Diana replied in a soft voice, knowing this was the end of this, at least. “Only leaving in the first place.”

If Elizabeth was going to respond to that, she didn’t have the chance—the final boarding call came, both children turning back to look at her. Spencer broke away from the gate, sprinting over and flinging himself into his mom’s arms one last time before he left.

Finally, he pulled away, walking beside Elizabeth as they left that place. It was Diana’s turn to stand by the windows, waving to every plane, just in case. And there she stayed, until she was sure he was gone from her arms—glad he wasn’t there to see her crying because it was over.

The sometimes homes were home no longer.


End file.
